{"id":276,"date":"2014-10-21T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T06:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=276"},"modified":"2014-10-15T19:52:01","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T19:52:01","slug":"hooking-up-in-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2014\/10\/21\/hooking-up-in-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Everybody is Hooking up at College\u2014Here\u2019s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Has \u201chooking\u00a0up\u201d\u00a0become\u00a0the defining feature of college life?\u00a0Does everyone do it?\u00a0Does everyone want to?<\/em> Most research on hooking up has examined college students who live on campus, or nearby, and hook up after alcohol-fueled parties. For example, the Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS) of 21 colleges and universities shows that more than 70 percent of students, overall, hook up at some point in their college career. Even so, new research from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a\u00a0diverse urban, public\u00a0university with more commuters than on-campus residents, suggests that college sex is something quite different for the typical commuting student.\u00a0(Go <a href=\"http:\/\/www.contemporaryfamilies.com\/commuter-hookups\/\">here<\/a> to view this release online.)<\/p>\n<p>In their study, \u201c\u2018It Goes Hand in Hand with the Parties\u2019: Race, Class, and Residence in College Student Negotiations of Hooking Up\u201d (in February issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sagepub.com\/journals\/Journal202165\"><em>Sociological Perspectives<\/em><\/a>)<em>, <\/em>Rachel Allison and CCF Senior Scholar <a href=\"http:\/\/soc.uic.edu\/sociology\/people\/faculty\/brisman\">Barbara Risman<\/a> find that commuter students <em>do not<\/em> typically participate in hooking up culture\u2014but they still believe it is a key feature of authentic college experience.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"pull-this-show\" id=\"pull-this-show-276-ex1\" style=\"display:none;\"><\/div> Allison and Risman explain, \u201cThe students we interviewed endorsed the media-driven belief that the \u2018real\u2019 college experience involves parties and hooking up. They explained, though, that it is simply unavailable to many of them.\u201d Sociologists Allison and Risman found that only students who live on campus or in apartments away from their families\u00a0have substantial opportunity to\u00a0\u201chook up.\u201d\u00a0In particular, the authors found: <span class=\"pull-this-mark\" id=\"pull-this-mark-276-ex1\" style=\"display:none;\"> Only students who live on campus or in apartments away from their families\u00a0have substantial opportunity to\u00a0\u201chook up.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Less-wealthy students and\u00a0most of the non-white students at this university who\u00a0are working class participate in hookup culture far\u00a0less than middle-class students.<\/li>\n<li>Even when white working class and racial minority students live on or near campus,\u00a0the tendency for students to hook up within racial and ethnic communities means that working class and racial minority students still feel excluded from what they see as \u201creal\u201d college experience.<\/li>\n<li>Students who work for pay many hours per week also feel excluded from a party culture that takes both time and money.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What is hooking up? \u201cHooking up\u201d typically means some sexual activity\u2014ranging from kissing to intercourse\u2014outside of a committed relationship. While much research focuses on residential college students and shows participation is common, those studies also demonstrate that hooking up leads to sexual intercourse less often than college students\u2014and the general public\u2014imagine. According to OCSLS data, 40 percent of students who have ever hooked up report intercourse during their most recent hookup.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_278\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-278\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2014\/10\/3359049348_4446a51ac2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-278\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2014\/10\/3359049348_4446a51ac2-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Image from Mira John via Flickr Creative Commons\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2014\/10\/3359049348_4446a51ac2-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2014\/10\/3359049348_4446a51ac2.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-278\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image from Mira John via Flickr Creative Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Is hooking up the \u201creal\u201d college experience? Allison and Risman\u2019s study elaborated specifically on commuter students\u2019 beliefs and experiences with hooking up. Allison and Risman explained, \u201cStudents from a range of class and ethnic backgrounds told us the \u2018real\u2019 college experience involves parties and hooking up, but white middle-class students believed they\u00a0actually live the \u2018real\u2019 college experience.\u201d\u00a0One student (a Middle-Eastern woman) in the study explained about hooking up: \u201cIt goes hand in hand with the parties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Commuters and minority students talked wistfully about missing\u00a0what they believe&#8211;often based on what they see in movies or television of campus life&#8211;is the \u201creal\u201d college experience. The researchers explained, \u201cThey feel they are getting a second rate experience.\u201d\u00a0The researchers added, \u201cIt\u2019s not that the commuting students don\u2019t tell us they sometimes have casual sex\u2014they do. But they do not participate in the hooking up culture that most students see as part of college life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the study<\/strong>. Allison and Risman analyzed 87 in-depth interviews with undergraduate students at the University of Illinois-Chicago for an article forthcoming in the February issue of <em>Sociological Perspectives<\/em>. Thirty-three percent lived on or near campus; 39 percent lived with their parents. The authors were especially struck by the extent to which students were convinced that the party and hookup scene was part of an authentic college experience. \u201cOn the one hand, our study demonstrates a lot more diversity in the way that students actually experience college\u2014but on the other, it showed us that students don\u2019t necessarily see the wide range of collegiate experiences as equally valid.\u201d The authors reflected, \u201cCould the real college experience be redefined as about learning? Of course, as college professors, we\u2019d like to think it could.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><em> Rachel Allison and Barbara Risman\u2019s February 2014 article, \u201cIt Goes Hand in Hand with the Parties\u201d: Race, Class, and Residence in College Student Negotiations of Hooking Up in Sociological Perspectives. <\/em><\/p>\n<div class='author-bios author-bios-bottom'>\n<p><span class='bio-author-name'>Rachel Allison<\/span> is in the department of sociology at Mississippi State University. She is the author of <em>Race, Gender and Attitudes Toward War in Chicago: An Intersectional<br \/>\nAnalysis<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><span class='bio-author-name'>Barbara Risman<\/span> is in the department of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of <em>Gender Vertigo: American Families in Transition<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Has \u201chooking\u00a0up\u201d\u00a0become\u00a0the defining feature of college life?\u00a0Does everyone do it?\u00a0Does everyone want to? Most research on hooking up has examined college students who live on campus, or nearby, and hook up after alcohol-fueled parties. For example, the Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS) of 21 colleges and universities shows that more than 70 percent of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2005,"featured_media":278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,15,123,14,120],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-culture","tag-ethnicity","tag-race","tag-sex"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2014\/10\/3359049348_4446a51ac2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}