Abstract
A legal drinking age of twenty may bisect the population of a freshman residence hall into a category of those who may drink legally and those who may not. Residential assistants, principal agents of social control in dormitories, confront a difficult task when charged with enforcing the college drinking rules under these social conditions. The present exploratory study, based on interviews with residential assistants in two freshmen residence halls, examines how RAs (residential assistants) defined, interpreted, and enforced the drinking rules during one academic year. Preliminary results suggest that through the process of mutual socialization an etiquette of RA-resident relations evolves. In effect, RAs “teach” residents on their home floors to break rules with discretion. The drinking habits of individual RAs along with architectural differences in two residential halls studies makes for two different variations in the etiquette of RA-resident relations.
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