Adolescent substance use and violence: a cross cultural comparison

Abstract

Primary Socialization Theory (PST) (Oetting & Donnermeyer, 1998) posits that the peer, family, and school environments interact to influence adolescent drug and alcohol use. The present study is an application of this theory, incorporating the additional component of negative affect as predictors of adolescent substance use and violence across Native American, Mexican American, and Anglo American males and females living in rural communities. Data were collected from over 65,000 rural adolescents as part of a repeated cross-sectional study, with 2000 participants randomly selected from each of the three ethnic groups for the final analyses. Analyses consisted of a series of MANOVAs and structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques to determine goodness of fit for the hypothetical model and parameter estimates for each of the six groups. Multigroup SEM analyses were also conducted to determine invariance between groups across the dimensions of gender and ethnicity. Results indicated several ethnic and gender differences in indicator variables (e.g., substance use, numbers of peers who use drugs, anger) at the multivariate and univariate level, as well as general consistency in parameter estimates across model analyses. Consistent with PST, the peer group was a significant positive predictor of substance use for all groups. The family and school factors did have significant protective effects against substance use, albeit indirectly moderated by peer drug associations. Results also indicated that substance use positively predicted violence for all groups. All analyses and relationships regarding negative affect yielded non-significant results. Multigroup analyses confirmed structural invariance between groups, indicating statistical similarity of the relationships between latent variables across gender and ethnicity. Results are discussed in terms of implications for primary prevention and intervention within rural settings.