In the Greek system, active members of the chapter are noted as the foreground who help to influence and mold conceptions of self-identity in new and impressionable members and establish the groundwork for a life of prestige and elitism in their campus community.
The search for identity is one of the most challenging issues that a college student will face. Often, the difficulty to precisely define individual identity is due to the fluidity and many multi-layered facets of identity. Personal contextual factors such as class, race, gender, religious affiliations, and sexuality are often used to help define and establish a sense of identity. A sense of elitism and privilege arises when an individual is accepted into an organization based on certain characteristics of their identity.
Although, this comfortable conformity has its downfalls, DeSantis describes fraternities as protective communities that alter a student’s identity and allow for “aspects of their identity to become invisible to them (DeStantis 21). In other words, the individuals in these communities are never forced to think and redefine the aspects of their own sense of identity that distinguish them from someone else. …show more content…
During the recruitment and pledging processes, current members of the chapter ultimately deem who is worthy and unworthy to join their chapter by an individual’s ability to conform to the larger group’s values and ethics, their capacity to meet the identified requirements based on the contextual preferences of the group, and favoritism (DeStantis 22). Unfortunately, White privilege in the Greek system utilizes the contextual factors of identity to create an overwhelming homogeneous group of
The search for identity is one of the most challenging issues that a college student will face. Often, the difficulty to precisely define individual identity is due to the fluidity and many multi-layered facets of identity. Personal contextual factors such as class, race, gender, religious affiliations, and sexuality are often used to help define and establish a sense of identity. A sense of elitism and privilege arises when an individual is accepted into an organization based on certain characteristics of their identity.
Although, this comfortable conformity has its downfalls, DeSantis describes fraternities as protective communities that alter a student’s identity and allow for “aspects of their identity to become invisible to them (DeStantis 21). In other words, the individuals in these communities are never forced to think and redefine the aspects of their own sense of identity that distinguish them from someone else. …show more content…
During the recruitment and pledging processes, current members of the chapter ultimately deem who is worthy and unworthy to join their chapter by an individual’s ability to conform to the larger group’s values and ethics, their capacity to meet the identified requirements based on the contextual preferences of the group, and favoritism (DeStantis 22). Unfortunately, White privilege in the Greek system utilizes the contextual factors of identity to create an overwhelming homogeneous group of