Brian King Source 4

Brian King Source 4

What is the worth of sorority / fraternity life?

Worthen, Meredith G. F. "Blaming the Jocks and the Greeks?: Exploring Collegiate Athletes’ and Fraternity/Sorority Members’ Attitudes Toward LGBT Individuals." Journal of College Student Development 55.2 (2014): 168-95. Web.

This source does not explore if college athletics or greek life affiliates are more homophobic, as it states previous studies have already shown that, but rather explores the underlying problem that causes this homophobia among these groups of people. The studies that this article's author previously views and discusses are studies conducted on predominantly white fraternities and sororities. In this article, a study is conducted that examines athletes' and greek members' attitudes toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals. In this study, groups of students were given surveys that used Raja and Stokes’s (1998) Modern Homophobia Scale, Mohr and Rochlen’s (1999) Attitudes Regarding Bisexuality Scale, and Hill and Willoughby’s (2005) Genderism and Transphobia Scale to measure the homophobia of the surveyed students. The results displayed that greek life membership is negatively related to supportive attitudes towards gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals. It also finds being male is negatively related to supportive attitudes towards the groups while being female is positively related to supportive attitudes towards the groups. The author then discusses why males and greek affiliated individuals would display more homophobic attitudes than females and non-affiliated individuals. The author suggests that fraternity affiliation among males promotes a certain type of masculinity that promotes homophobia. The author suggests universities develop programs to promote supportive attitudes toward LGBT individuals.

While the athletic side of this article does not exactly fit with my topic, the study still provides good info on greek members and their attitudes toward the LGBT community. This source reinforces my original thinking that I had before I started my research. I do not know if sororities and fraternities are a direct cause of this or a contributing factor to something bigger. Despite this, I am still closer to an answer as to how worthwhile fraternities and sororities are.

This source covers the topic of LGBT attitudes which closely relates to the previous article which explored cultural sensitivity. I found it surprising that the previous source found no correlation between cultural sensitivity and greek life affiliation, but this source found a correlation between negative LGBT attitudes and greek membership. My previous source stated that there is no correlation between hypermasculinity and greek life membership, but this source suggests that greek life forms a masculinity that discourages homosexuality. These may be in disagreement, or be totally different types of masculinity with their own negative impacts.

I still have questions about fraternity and sorority correlation to drug use, alcohol use, and reinforcing claims to either help previous sources or disprove them. I can conclude from my four sources that greek life may inhibit academic success and help social abilities, have no effect on cultural sensitivity, have no correlation between hypermasculinity and sexual aggression, but have a correlation to negative LGBT attitudes.