The Relationship between Ethnic-Racial Socialization and College Student Alcohol Abuse: Assessing the Mediating Roles of General Strain, Social Learning, Self-Control and Social Bonds

• In Event: Substance Abuse: Race/Ethnicity, Mental Health, and Legal Issues

Abstract

Parental socialization messages addressing a child's ethnicity (ethnic-racial socialization) have recently emerged in the criminological literature as a factor in explaining delinquent outcomes (Burt, Simons, and Gibbons 2012; Unnever and Gabbidon 2011). The current study extends the understanding of this relationship by proposing a set of theoretical frameworks that connect ethnic-racial socialization to the delinquent outcome of alcohol abuse. Data recently collected from an ethnically diverse sample of college students (N = 580) will be used to test the extent to which three dimensions of ethnic-racial socialization (cultural socialization, preparation for bias, and promotion of mistrust) either inhibit or promote alcohol abuse, and the extent to which these relationships are mediated by the theoretical mechanisms specified by the four central micro theories of criminal offending -- social learning theory, social bond theory, general strain theory, and self-control theory.

Author

• Matthew Grindal, University of California, Riverside