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...suburban = 391; 89% Caucasian) schools in metropolitan Detroit completed surveys at the beginning and end of the school year. More similarities than differences were found in hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting substance use among these two groups of students. For both groups, peer pressure susceptibility and school commitment were significantly related to substance use. For girls only, participation in after-school activities was negatively associated with substance use. The importance of prevention programs in the transition to middle school is discussed.
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American youth use substances at alarmingly high rates. In a nationally representative household survey conducted in 2003, 12.9% of 12-year-olds had used alcohol, 7.8% had used cigarettes, and 1.4% had used marijuana (Office of Applied Studies, 2004). These rates climb steadily so that by age 18, 76.5% had used alcohol, 60% had used cigarettes, and 45,8% had used marijuana. Several researchers have argued that early adolescence is a critical period of vulnerability for youth, with rates of substance use climbing rapidly in middle school (Guo, Collins, Hill, & Hawkins, 2000; Sobeck, Abbey, Agius, Clinton, & Harrison, 2000; Tucker, Ellickson, Orlando, Martino, & Klein, 2005). Although some degree of risk taking and experimentation is normative in adolescence, early substance use has been linked to numerous negative outcomes, including later substance abuse, low educational achievement, and delinquent behavior (Ellickson, Tucker, & Klein, 2003; Guo et al., 2000; Kandel &Chen, 2000). Furthermore, ethnic differences are frequently found, such that Caucasian youth typically report earlier onset and higher levels of substance use than do African American youth, although African Americans frequently experience more serious health problems as a result of substance use (Beauvais & Oetting, 2002; Griffin, Scheier, Botvin, & Diaz, 2000; Watt, 2004).
The causes of substance use are complex and multifaceted. Over the past 30 years, researchers have examined the role of cultural, community, family, peer, and individual risk and protective factors (see Najaka, Gottfredson, & Wilson, 2002, and Randolph, 2004, for recent reviews). One important theme that can be extracted from this literature is that risk factors may vary at different stages of development. For example, the underlying premise of the social development model (Catalano, Kosterman, Hawkins, Newcomb, & Abbott, 1996; Schaps & Solomon, 2003), which was grounded in social control theory (Hirschi, 1969), is that whether youth engage in substance use and other antisocial behavior is based on the beliefs, values, and actions of those to whom they have bonded. Youth who are attached and committed to individuals and institutions with prosocial norms are less likely to use substances, because these bonds would be threatened by such behavior (Catalano et al., 1996). As they develop, youth sequentially bond to parents, schools, and peers. Parents do not lose their importance in adolescence; however, peers gain influence (Simons-Morton, Haynie, Crump, Eitel, & Saylor, 2001).
The current study had two interrelated goals. The first was to examine the extent to which selected demographic and psychosocial risk and protective factors were associated with the onset of substance use in early adolescence. The second was to determine if these risk and protective factors differed between a sample of urban, primarily African American youth and a sample of suburban, primarily Caucasian youth from the same metropolitan area. The relevant literature and the study's hypotheses are described below.
Comparisons of Risk and Protective Factors Among African American and Caucasian Youth
The majority of research that has examined the etiology of adolescent substance use has relied on samples composed primarily of Caucasian youth (Hawkins, Van Horn, & Arthur, 2004; Tucker, Orlando, & Ellickson, 2003). This limitation has been noted by several authors, and many recent studies have focused on minority youth (Brown, Miller, & Clayton, 2004; Wallace & Muroff, 2002; Zimmerman & Schmeelk-Cone, 2003). Comparisons of the predictors of substance use for Caucasian and African American youth have produced mixed results. Some authors have found similar patterns of results for students from both ethnic groups (Costa, Jessor, & Turbin, 1999; Williams, Ayers, Abbott, Hawkins, & Catalano, 1999). For example, Williams and colleagues (1999) conducted longitudinal analyses of 372 Caucasian and 195 African American students from urban Seattle schools. Risk and protective factors assessed at age 12 or 13 were used to predict youths' substance use at age 15 or 16. Two significant racial differences were found; however, the differences in the magnitude of the betas were so small that the authors concluded that comparable prevention approaches should be effective for African American and Caucasian youth.
Other researchers have found that standard predictors of substance use were more strongly related to Caucasian students' substance use than to African American students' use (Brown et al., 2004; Gottfredson & Koper, 1996; Griffin et al., 2000; Wallace & Muroff, 2002). For example, Wallace and Muroff (2002) analyzed data from multiple cohorts of the Monitoring the Future study, which is a large, nationally representative sample of 8th, 10th-, and 12th-grade students (Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2004). They compared African American and Caucasian students' exposure and vulnerability to 55 risk factors and found significant differences for more than half of them. African American high school seniors were more likely than Caucasian high school seniors to report that their parents had low education levels, that they lived in a single-parent home, and that they resided in a large city. However, being economically disadvantaged and living in a single-parent home were stronger predictors of Caucasian high school seniors' substance use than African American seniors' use. Few differences were found in the family domain; however, school-related risk factors were stronger predictors of Caucasian high school seniors' substance use than of African American seniors' substance use.
Mixed results have been found regarding the role of peers in adolescents' substance use. Findings from several studies suggest that peers have less influence on African American youths' substance use than on Caucasian students' use (Brown et al., 2004; Hermann & McWhirter, 1997). For example, Brown and colleagues (2004) found that peer pressure resistance skills in sixth grade were more consistently related to tenth-grade substance use for Caucasian youth than for African American youth. Other studies have found that African American and Caucasian youth are similarly affected by peers' substance use (Catalano et al., 1993; Gillmore et al., 1990). In one recent study, youth were asked about the circumstances in which they first used alcohol (Strycker, Duncan, & Pickering, 2003). African American youth were significantly more likely than Caucasian youth to indicate that they first used alcohol with friends. In contrast, Caucasian youth were significantly more likely than African American youth to indicate that they first used alcohol with their parents.
Hypotheses
This study examines predictors of substance use at the beginning and end of sixth grade. As noted earlier, the transition to middle school is a point at which many youth initiate substance use (Guo et al., 2000; Sobeck et al., 2000; Tucker et al., 2005). In the United States, African American youth...
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