Functionalist Perspective Of Bars, Clubs, And Drinking Alcohol

On a wet, dark, and snowy Sunday night an outsider wouldn't expect a Northeastern University campus bar to be crowded. In fact, most students can't even leave their dorms because there is too much snow. Yet a tiny pub, located barely off campus on Gainesboro Street, is packed wall to wall with students. A small community is drinking away their problems while discussing the probability of school being canceled. Many experts would describe this act as binge drinking, but any student would prefer to describe it as just a regular Sunday night.

As freshmen step foot on Boston College during move-in, the newest Eagles have many expectations for their upcoming college years which involves tailgates, parties, clubbing, and other activities. Boston College is a Jesuit Catholic university. Although Boston College is a religious institution, students still consume alcohol in dangerous amounts. Freshmen come to Boston College with various drinking experiences: familiar, somewhat familiar, or unfamiliar with alcohol. Many drinking habits are established during a student’s freshman year. Freshmen are excited to experience their first ounce of freedom and this definitive moment in their life often leads to dangerous drinking habits and poor decision making. Freshman year is the time where one forms their identity in college without the physical presence of their guardians. Aristotle claims that humans are “social animals” and our interactions with others shape how we live and who we are. (Mattison 139). Humans naturally take cues on how to act from those who we surround ourselves with. From Senior Tuesdays, to Thirsty Thursdays, to weekends and Marathon Monday, drinking has become a habit for many students at Boston College. It is hard to picture a weekend at Boston College where beer cans are not scattered in a Mod backyard or vague cheers echoing from a crowded common room where a drinking game is being played on a Saturday. We often hear ambulances during weekends rushing through campus to transport students to the hospital who drank too much, but students rarely see drinking copious amounts of alcohol as a real problem. According to Mattison, temperance is the virtue of well-ordered desires for pleasures. (Mattison 68). Drinking and temperance have an interesting relationship here at Boston College. Many students who drink often see alcohol as full of pleasure, but their actions are not well-ordered according to Mattison. The media

Binge drinking is one of the third most preventable causing deaths in the United States (McGinnis & Foege, 1993). At the micro level most teens do it to seek acceptance from within their group of peers and we also undergo peer pressure and think they need to drink to be able to be accepted and then at the mid-range level most college males students drink to seek their masculinity from within a friend group. Then once at the macro level different countries with different culture values may drink alcohol more than others even though they may drink more there still is a chance that someone may develop alcoholism.Such things as symbolic interactionism, conflict, and functionalist perspective are all associated with binge drinking

Those that participate in binge drinking do it for many different reasons, a bad test grade, roommate arguments, celebration for a job well done, peer pressure, or simply because it is the weekend. No one is saying that it is wrong to go out and have a few drinks but when students go out and just drink to get drunk, actions must be taken to stop such activity. According to the graph on the next page done by the Harvard Public School of Health it is clear that a majority of students drink to simply get wasted. [Colorado State University 1] The number of binge drinkers may not have gone up in 1999 compared to 1997, for every five students two are binge drinkers, or 44%. [Wechsler #2, 1] However, the intensity of drinking has increased, when students are going out they are having more to drink. [Wechsler #2, 2]

A study on teen drinking by the Joseph Raintree Foundation described underage drinking as, “a social activity usually undertaken by small groups of close friends, well away from the oversight of parents or other significant adults.” This kind of unsupervised drinking takes place because Americans place such a heavy emphasis on young people not drinking, catalyzed by zero-tolerance policies schools place on alcohol and a high MLDA. American youth are frequently told that with age, comes more freedom of choice and more responsibility, yet having a MLDA of 21 betrays that notion, almost encouraging young adults to reach for the so-called

In the article “Drinking over the Lifespan” By: Jennifer E. Merrill, Ph.D., and Kate B. Carey, Ph.D. They talk about how many college students drink heavily and experience myriad associated negative consequences. Most college student’s drink, they tend to drink more heavily than their friends who don’t attend college. Many of these drinking patterns have affected many environmental and temporal characteristic specific to the college environment, including residential campus living, the academic week, and the academic year. A study shows that about 41 percent of 18-24 year olds are enrolled in post-secondary education. When teens are emerging into adulthood, they are trying to find out their own identity, which alcohol use might come in while

Alcohol-Related Windows on Simmel’s Social World by William J. Staudenmeier Jr. from the text, Illuminating Social Life, dives into the topic of alcohol and how its role in society can be directly reflected back to Simmel’s work. The text was introduced by explaining how alcohol has been a major influence throughout American history and how it has shaped the interactions of difference cultures, races and ethnicities by characterizing drinking as “conflict between coexisting value structures” (98). Simmel’s ideas about the core differences between dyads and triads was applied in the context of how group interaction significantly changed when the role of alcohol becomes a factor to socializing. Three different group stratifications can be seen

In American culture especially, drinking is seen as a rite of passage or assimilation into adulthood. Young people in many cultures are introduced to drinking early in life, as a normal part of daily living. Whereas in America, drinking at a young age is looked down upon, the reverse is true in societies that maintain the best moderate drinking practices. The idea of a minimum as before someone should be protected from alcohol is alien in China and France. Children learn to drink early in Zambia by taking small quantities when they are sent to buy beer; children in France, Italy, and Spain are routinely given wine as part of a meal or celebration. In the United States, the legal age to drink varies dramatically form others around the world but is still look upon as a step into adulthood. Though attitudes and behaviors vary in different places, drinking can be seen as a routine way of assimilating a youth into their respective culture’s social customs.

The Detroit News even had an editorial called “TO THE HIGH SCHOOL INTELLECT,” encouraging kids that it is hip and cool if one drinks and it helps with getting girls, “It is chic and charming to have an intrigue with a bootlegger, to carry a flask on the hip, to produce it where its possession may enhance a reputation for derring-do, and to imbibe from it in the presence of lovely and impressionable femininity” (Okrent 213). The editorial influenced many young people to drink in Detroit, and was the reason why a high school dance at the Hotel Statler was shut down because of excessive drinking (Okrent 213). America’s youth was changing due to false and immature motifs and ideals of drinking. Because of Prohibition there no limits or restrictions that regulated drinking, this led to many teenagers to

Tan ends his article with a discussion of his findings. One conclusion that Tan draws is that college drinking is a culture not an epidemic and so cannot be treated the way one would a disease. He believes that to curb drinking educators must first understand that alcohol on campus is a culture and that they must provide students a way to gain

In today’s American society, the consumption of alcohol is commonly practiced. It is quite uncommon for one to attend a social event where the presence of alcohol is obsolete. However, society has deemed it fit to tell our youth that they are not allowed to participate in the traditional social pastime of drinking until they reach the age of 21. Hence, when they encounter methods around this predicament-and most of them do-young adults often participate in the reckless consumption of alcohol in large quantities.

Like it or not alcohol is part of the fabric of American Culture. People drink at parties, weddings work functions and any other events. And medical

In America, drinking is like a sport. It’s an activity, it’s fun and we love to do it. Drinking is all around us, it’s a social norm. We drink at family parties, sports events, restaurants, etc. Almost anywhere there is alcohol beverages being served. Americans are known for being “binge drinkers” or a bunch of “Alcoholics”. This dates all the way back to our founding fathers. Our first president George Washington spent a full 7% of his income while in office on booze. His infamous farewell party tab totaled over $15,000 present-day dollars just on alcohol (Smith 1). John Adams and his family were also big drinkers, Moreau de St. Méry, a

Alcohol drinking on college campus greatly harms health, studies, relationships and selection making of students that are strongly affecting our society and reputation of the college life. Drinking in college is becoming a larger problem affecting our over all society in America. Yearly a sizable amount of high school graduates go off to college, leaving their families behind to attend college. Some may attend school close to home or in a different section of the state or country. These college students face bigger issues than within the classroom. They face challenges of drinking, drugs, and peer pressure. This paper will discuss the pressures placed upon college students and some contributing factors with the use of alcohol, and also the consequences that come along with it. Daily college students face pressure from their piers. Primarily the most common pressure received from peers involves the use of alcohol. Students feel pressure through their classmates to have fun during the semester, though they are not the legal age. Students may also feel pressured by peers to follow fraternities and sororities. Such groups typically are known for excessive binge drinking and partying. Students are also influenced to drink to make sure they “ fit in” with a specific cluster of individuals. It’s essential to hunt down the causes of school drinking, and also the effects alcohol has on an individual.

In the United States alone the drinking patterns throughout history have changed dramatically to reflect the times. Starting out in colonial times the usage of alcohol use was seen as a blessing, and harmless to society. It was acceptable to drink while at work, and during social events, however drinking alone was highly frowned upon. Many early religions believed that alcohol was a gift from God, “man should partake of God’s gift with out wasting or abusing it”#. To enhance and encourage the social