A release from bonds: a qualitative cross-cultural study of students' social and drinking behaviour

Previous research concerned with student populations and alcohol is overwhelmingly fixated on the problems of drinking as opposed to what alcohol really means in social situations for students. In addition, most national and cross-cultural studies on the topic, not only adopt a quantitative paradigm, but tend to focus on cultures with highly conflicting, ethically charged relationship with alcohol, and dismiss other cultures. Specifically, no qualitative research on Greek university students’ understandings has been published up to this point. The present research aims to fill a gap in the literature surrounding students’ social and drinking behaviour by qualitatively exploring how British and Greek students make sense of and use alcohol in social situations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among five British and seven Greek students, and two thematic analyses were employed treating both samples as two separate studies, but using the same approaches, techniques and materials. Both the Greek and British data analyses are presented as two separate data sets and then drawn together in the Discussion. Shared themes for both groups included aspects of how drinking was exemplified as a system of value, as participants reported gaining a sense of freedom through drinking; from constraints, from rules, from their own shyness, and from worries about the past and future. Intoxication seemed to be portrayed as a release from those bonds, allowing a more liberated person to come out. Differences among them focused on their specific attitudes towards alcohol use, the extent to which they engaged with it, and how they understood cultural and societal influences on their drinking. The themes bring novel findings to the current literature and expand on the subjective understandings of how students from two different contexts perceive, understand, feel, and form an opinion on their social and drinking behaviour.