Predicting High School Minority Adolescents’ Drinking from Their Exposure to White Schoolmates: Differences and Similarities among Hispanic, Black, and Asian U.S. Adolescents

Abstract

White students' drinking may constitute a risk factor for drinking among same-school minority adolescents. Our study examined data from 14,986 ethnic minority American high school students (56% female, mean age = 15.6). Models examined associations between school-level White student drinking and same-school Black, Hispanic, and Asian adolescents' drinking, as well as whether schools' proportions of White students and friendships with White schoolmates moderated these associations. Both school-level White students' drinking and minority students' friendships with White schoolmates were associated with levels of minority student drinking. But these associations were dependent upon levels of other study variables. In particular, there were higher associations between school-level risk factors and minorities' drinking when minority adolescents had high proportions of Whites among their friends.

Associations between alcohol dehydrogenase genes and alcohol use across early and middle adolescence: Moderation × Preventive intervention

“…In addition, PC1 was significantly associated with growth in early adolescent alcohol use ( b = –0.015, p < .05) and alcohol use at 9th grade ( b = –0.061, p < .05); PC1 was not associated with alcohol use during middle adolescence ( b = 0.011, ns ). This result is not surprising given that PC1 is an index of European descent: these adolescents generally drink more than do minorities (Cleveland, Zheng, Wiebe, & McGuire, 2015).…”

Similarities and differences in general drinking game behavior, game-specific behavior, and peer influence factors across race/ethnicity.

“…For example, research suggests that for Asian/American adolescents, having adult role models as well as injunctive norms and weak sanctions for substance use at school are associated with heightened risk for binge drinking. Hispanic and Black high school students who attend schools with a higher proportion of White students engage in more frequent alcohol consumption, but only when they also report having a high proportion of White friends (compared with a low proportion of White friends; Cleveland, Wiebe, McGuire, & Zheng, 2015). Future research on DG behavior should continue to consider how same- and other-race/ethnicity role models and close friends influence descriptive and injunctive norms for DG play (cf.…”