…not really—I just thought that was eye-catching.
Anyways…
In my inquiry paper, I examined the inner workings of how binge drinking in college students is an identity-based construct. I feel like the strongest argument that emerged from my inquiry paper was that the binge-drinking college student is an identity created and perpetuated by the media, as well as one’s peers to a lesser degree. This identity then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—college students view binge drinking as a necessary part of being a college student, and thus drink to fulfill this identity. For my convincing paper, my thesis is the following: since binge drinking in college students is an identity-based phenomenon, lowering the drinking age to 18 would have a negligible effect on binge drinking in this demographic. Essentially, college students don’t binge-drink because drinking beer is seen as forbidden, college students binge-drink to fulfill a part of the college student identity. I know that I’m going to be able to find a lot of counter arguments on this, but I’m a little bit worried that my identity argument is not going to hold up against a stream of research in favor of lowering the drinking age. I have good statistic-based research though, which can hold-up against most other evidence, so I think I’ll be alright.
Maybe you can interview a bunch of college students. Ask them when they started drinking and why. I know a lot of people who never drank in high school and had their first drink in college. If it wasn't there thing in high school, what makes it their thing as soon as they enter the collegiate atmosphere? I can think of some reasons...
ReplyDeleteJust an idea, I may do some interviewing for my convincing paper as well.
Lauren
Matt,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement. If you need interviewing I can help with that. I have some personal information that I can share with you to make your argument stronger. I think it is very true that people change because of the college atmosphere. I wrote a recent blog about drinking and identity. I don't know if it is exactly relevant to your topic but you may be able to use it to...it was about how people change their personality when drinking and how an article came out about those who abstain from drinking are more depressed..i would check the credibility of the source first, but those are things that will help you..and i'm definitely up for interviewing if you can't find someone!