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Research against coed housing: it fuels drinking


Laurie4b
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Not surprisingly, this study found that living in co-ed housing increases sexual activity, but it also increases alchohol use. Maybe that will be enough to get the attention of administrators, most of whom are cracking down on alcohol consumption. They could reduce it quite a bit by going back to single-gender dorms.

 

http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_co_ed_dorms.html

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I've lived in coed floors and single sex floors. In my own experience, the coed ones were much more civilized. It greatly reduced the stupidity of the students. It is less shameful and painful to make a fool of yourself in front of your peers. I haven't time to read the study at the moment (have to go iron dress clothes GRIN) so forgive me if this is off, but I would guess that it has more to do with the population who chooses to live in the same-sex dorms than the same-sex-ness of the dorms. In some colleges, there is a greater population of students from conservative families in the single sex floors. One of my colleges was like that. I landed in the single sex floor because they ran out of coed housing. It was a fairly quiet floor because only quiet people chose to live there. I don't think it reduced the drinking, but it reduced the drinking-to-excess-in-public. At my other college, there were no coed floors, so the population was more ordinary. The single sex floor at that college was definatley worse than the coed floors I lived on later. And my husband's coed floors were exponentially better than the coed ones. If you have boys who don't drink, please put them on coed floors or on dry campuses. Honestly.

-Nan

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I think if your chief concern is social behavior (drinking, drugs and sex), you may want to focus on dry campuses. I don't think coed dorms lead to more sexual activity. However, drinking leads to all kinds of behavior.

 

I lived in coed dorms. 2 had halls where the hallway leading one direction was one sex and the hall leading the other was the opposite. 2 had single sex floors. My university had done studies and found that coed dorms sustained much less physical damage than single sex male dorms. They also found that female safety was improved with young men living (and getting to be friends with) in close proximity to young women. In all coed dorms, at my university, men were in rooms with windows less than fifteen feet above the ground outside.

 

About the property damage to dorms--my brother went to a different university which had only single sex dorms and restricted opposite sex visitation. The stories of what a group a males would do for entertainment were insane. One of the more tame stories my brother told me was about flooding the hallways so they could have an indoor slip and slide. Of course this flooded rooms too. The male dorms my brother lived in were never a place to do quiet study. I don't remember a time I could not have studied in my room, not even the weekend.

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I think if your chief concern is social behavior (drinking, drugs and sex), you may want to focus on dry campuses.

 

As it happens, I attended a dry campus as an undergraduate. Drinking, drugs, and sex were all present there. If they were totally absent at any campus, I'd be surprised.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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As it happens, I attended a dry campus as an undergraduate. Drinking, drugs, and sex were all present there. If they were totally absent at any campus, I'd be surprised.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Which is why I've never understood the reasoning of putting 18 year old kids in such a situation. I will never get it. My son will be doing local college and living at home.

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In the mid-70's when the drinking age was 18 in New York, most freshman were of legal drinking age. My dorm was co-ed by floor and the university was a very competitive all-grades-on-a-curve place. Hard to say which variable contributed to the "not a party school" atmosphere, but it might be the work ethic.

 

Related to this topic is a movement by some school administrators to get states to lower the drinking age. Part of their argument is that the law prohibiting drinking before the age of 21 drives drinking underground; excessive drinking is less likely to occur when it can be out in the open and in social situations.

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I think if your chief concern is social behavior (drinking, drugs and sex), you may want to focus on dry campuses. I don't think coed dorms lead to more sexual activity. However, drinking leads to all kinds of behavior.

 

.

 

I live near two major universities--both dry campuses--officially; otherwise, not--which is why I thought the articles were interesting. There are all sorts of articles locally about what the campuses are doing to try to stop drinking on their dry campuses.

 

I posted the article for general interest.

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I don't think single gender dorms are the answer to college drinking or college-aged young adults having s*x. Bot were very common in my singled-gender dorms way back when. My ds sub-lets an apartment with two girls. They each have their own tiny bedroom but share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room. There isn't drinking or partying going on - it is one of the reasons he is renting instead of living in the dorms (he couldn't study or get a good night's sleep in the dorm).

 

I think that blaming the dorms is just looking for excuses for the behavior of the "kids." They aren't kids. They are young adults who don't know how to make adult choices, but really should have learned already.

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I don't think single gender dorms are the answer to college drinking or college-aged young adults having s*x. Bot were very common in my singled-gender dorms way back when. My ds sub-lets an apartment with two girls. They each have their own tiny bedroom but share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room. There isn't drinking or partying going on - it is one of the reasons he is renting instead of living in the dorms (he couldn't study or get a good night's sleep in the dorm).

 

I think that blaming the dorms is just looking for excuses for the behavior of the "kids." They aren't kids. They are young adults who don't know how to make adult choices, but really should have learned already.

I've never minded the "Three's Company" set-up. The idea of them sharing a room is, imo, completely different.

 

I don't think all of the drinking and sex in college is due to coed rooms, obviously it was going on well before the rooms became coed. However, I don't see how coed rooms would help, in any way shape or form. I mean, what 'good' reason is there for coed rooms?!?

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IOW, access increases from maybe 12 hours a day in a single-gender dorm to 24/7 access.

 

Now access is not the only factor, but I have read articles that point out that the age and maturity level of students in the ''college age group'' are not always sufficient to enable them to resist temptations and thus reducing the temptation opptys is usually a good step.

 

This makes very good sense to me, esp considering the long-range consequences that result from poor choices and immature teen/young adult decisions.

 

lisa

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