Sorority Rituals - Reflections On Rites of ... - Mari Ann Callais

CHAPTER IV
RESULTS
Summarized in this chapter are the major findings of the study. This chapter is organized
into four primary sections: (a) the participants in the study, (b) campus descriptions, (c) the
findings, and (d) a summary of the findings.
The Participants in the Study
In this section, a brief description of the sorority women who participated in the study is
presented. Due to the nature of the subject and the level of confidentiality, it is not possible to
describe the sorority women’s chapters and their chapter culture, or to go into great detail about
the sorority women themselves. Basic demographic and sorority involvement information
provided by the participants is included in Table 2 and Table 3.
Demographic Profile of the Participants
Fifty-one undergraduate sorority women were interviewed on nine campuses. These
interviews consisted of individual and focus group interviews. As indicated in Table 1, the
sorority women ranged in age from 18 to 22 years of age. Because the interviews were conducted
mainly during the summer months, all of the women had completed their freshman year and no
new members were available until after recruitment began in the fall semester, which was after
the time frame created for the interviews.
The demographic profile of the 51 participants in the study (see Table 1) consisted of age
groups ranging from 18 to 22, with only one participant (2%) age 18, seventeen at age 19 (33%),
twenty two at age 20 (43%), ten at age 21 (20%), and only one participant at age 22 (2%).
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