Gendered Patterns of Drug Use on a University Campus in the United States

Abstract

Substance use patterns are important to understand because they can have a variety of effects on those who engage in them. Some of these consequences can be harmful. This is especially true for young adults in college settings who are making the transition to adulthood. While the issue of substance use looms large in the research literature on college students, less attention had been focused exclusively on women in this important setting. This paper attempts to address this limitation in existing research by assessing the utility of two theories of human behavior for explaining substance use among female college students (i) Social Learning Theory and (ii) General Strain Theory. There does appear to be support for learning theory but not for strain theory.KEY WORDS: drug use, strain theory, social learning theory and gender