More social science research findings regarding Catholic colleges and universities are being reported and discussed. The focus has been on an article in the peer-reviewed Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion called, “‘Hooking Up’ at College: Does Religion Make a Difference?”

The study concluded that Catholic women attending non-Catholic and Catholic colleges “display roughly a 72 percent increase in the odds of ‘hooking up’ compared to those women with no religious affiliation” (p. 544). The study also finds that women [Catholic and non-Catholic] at Catholic colleges and universities “are almost four times as likely to have participated in ‘hooking up’ compared to women in secular schools” (p. 544). Thus, there are results regarding Catholic women at all colleges and for all women at Catholic colleges and universities.

There are some important methodological issues to consider:

* A “hook up” is very widely defined as “when a girl and a guy get together for a physical encounter and don’ necessarily expect anything further” (p. 540). As the authors caution, “‘Hooking up’ may refer to a broad range of physical acts ranging from kissing to sexual intercourse” (p. 548). It is difficult to know just what respondents are reporting in responding “yes.” ...

* Thus, there are only interviews with 39 Catholic women attending Catholic colleges in the study. A conservative estimate of the number of Catholic women attending Catholic college at the time is 85,000. The margin of sampling error for 39 interviews generalizing to a population of 85,000 is +/- 15.7 percentage points.
* Furthermore, these large margins of error are compounded by the small number of Catholic colleges these women attended at the institutional level. ...

The authors have made no mistakes—what they have produced is rather standard practice in academic social science survey research (although I would have strongly recommended controlling for household income which is related to college enrollment and choice). They have identified a compelling statistical association in the data. Rightfully, they note the limitations of the exploratory analysis and welcome additional research. This is what is needed. Replication with a larger sample would tell us if this is an anomaly of small sample size or a real effect (for both religious identity and college affiliation).

Labels: Catholic Church, culture, hooking up, premarital sex, universities

posted by Eve at 10:10 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

It was not so long ago, when singer Billy Joel's chiding plea to "Come Out, Virginia" resonated with thousands of young people born into the Sexual Revolution, many of them reveling in American society's defiance of the Catholic Church and traditional sexual mores.

According to a new study, Virginia may not be so reluctant anymore.

Researchers from Mississippi State University considered a survey of 1,000 college students nationwide and were surprised to find that "women attending colleges and universities affiliated with the Catholic Church are almost four times as likely to have participated in 'hooking up' compared to women at secular schools."

Labels: Catholic Church, culture, hooking up, religion, universities

posted by Eve at 1:05 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Even the Yale College Dean’s Office is interested in Yale’s sex scene.

With the overhaul of its Web site this coming summer, the Dean’s Office will post a new student-generated essay collection under the title “sex@yale.” The site will include 500- to 1,000-word essays by current undergraduates, allowing them to reflect anonymously on their sexual experiences at Yale and their impressions of the sexual culture here.

The Web site will not be password protected, so anyone can read it, said Melanie Boyd, director of undergraduate studies in Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies and the new special advisor to the dean of Yale College on gender issues. ...

Student organizers said the initiative will attempt to change Yale’s sex culture and overturn the perception that it is dominated by casual hook-ups. But Gottesdiener was careful to emphasize that the initiative is not against hook-ups per se; rather, it will elaborate on it by showing that sexual encounters at Yale go far beyond the hook-up scene, she said.

Boyd added that the content of the site will reflect core values of consent, desire and “being thoughtful.”

Labels: culture, hooking up, sex, universities

posted by Eve at 9:07 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...North Carolina, with a student body that is nearly 60 percent female, is just one of many large universities that at times feel eerily like women’s colleges. Women have represented about 57 percent of enrollments at American colleges since at least 2000, according to a recent report by the American Council on Education. Researchers there cite several reasons: women tend to have higher grades; men tend to drop out in disproportionate numbers; and female enrollment skews higher among older students, low-income students, and black and Hispanic students. ...

Students interviewed here said they believed their mating rituals reflected those of college students anywhere. But many of them — men and women alike — said that the lopsided population tends to skew behavior.

“A lot of my friends will meet someone and go home for the night and just hope for the best the next morning,” Ms. Lynch said. “They’ll text them and say: ‘I had a great time. Want to hang out next week?’ And they don’t respond.”

Even worse, “Girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with, to lock it down,” Ms. Lynch said.

As for a man’s cheating, “that’s a thing that girls let slide, because you have to,” said Emily Kennard, a junior at North Carolina. “If you don’t let it slide, you don’t have a boyfriend.”

Labels: culture, gender, heterosexual couples, hooking up, men, universities, women

posted by Eve at 11:22 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT