An Erotic Curriculum? A Comparative Study of Collegiate Sexual Cultures

Elizabeth Armstrong

College is widely perceived to be as much about sociality as it is about academics, yet there is little research on how the undergraduate experiences shapes the social and sexual development of young men and women. This study asks: What role do higher education institutions play in shaping undergraduate sexual cultures? What is the content of the erotic curricula being provided (intentionally and otherwise) by colleges and universities in the United States? I will compare higher education institutions in the United States in order to isolate the sexual curricula of particular universities, and investigate the consequences of these differing cultures for the selves and sexualities of young men and women. I plan to use multiple sources of data: in-depth interviews, participant observation, and documentary materials. A series of approximately 120 in-depth interviews will provide data on how students experience college. I anticipate that the findings of this study will inform higher education policy, enabling universities to more self-consciously design programs to constructively guide young people through these transitions to adulthood.

About Elizabeth Armstrong

Elizabeth A. Armstrong is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley. She is the author of Forging Gay Identities: Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco, 1950-1994 (2002). The project she will undertake with the support of the NAE/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship examines the sexual socialization of American college students. Her investigation of the erotic curricula provided by American higher education students grows from her interests in sexuality and gender in the contemporary American context.