Fraternities, Social Distance, and Anti-Semitism Among Jewish and Non-Jewish Undergraduates

A NUMBER OE' discussions of American college fraternities have referred to issues relevant to the study of status placement and social mobility. In a research report by Levine and Sussman, fraternities emerge as ageand social classgraded organizations which train undergraduates in life styles appropriate for particular adult statuses.' Less recent but still germane is Waller's examination of the rating and dating complex.2 In part, it treats the fraternity-sorority system as an important part of the process by which prospective marriage partners are selected within various prestige categories. Fraternities have also been viewed as organizations involved in the circulation of local elites, conferring and maintaining high status among particular members of more diverse student bodies.3 Two general impressions arise from a consideration of this past research. 1. Fraternities help to maintain differences in ascribed status by taking into account family characteristics or personal characteristics typically acquired in families of different status when considering candidates for membership. 2. A major latent function of a fraternity system is to provide for the, undergraduate culture a system of sponsored mobility which operates simultaneously with (though sometimes at odds with) the system of contest mobility that is more characteristic of the purely academic realm of student life.4