Poster #177 - School Racial Climate and Latina/o Adolescents’ Substance use Behaviors in Immigrant and Non-immigrant Families

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Integrative Statement

Alcohol and marijuana use among adolescents are associated with short- and long-term health problems (Squeglia et al., 2009), and Latina/o middle school students are disproportionately affected by marijuana use and some aspects of alcohol use (Miech et al., 2018). The Need to Belong Theory argues that perceived discrimination may threaten individuals’ sense of belonging, creating a sense of exclusion and social pain, eventually lead to substance use as means for self-medication (Stock et al., 2015; Unger et al., 2014). Perceived discrimination is linked to heightened adolescents’ substance use (Benner et al., 2018), but school racial climate captures various factors beyond discrimination that may threaten students’ need to belong and increases their risk for substance approval and use. The current study examined the links between various aspects of school racial climate and Latina/o adolescents’ substance use behaviors. Because being a member of an immigrant family is associated with factors such as higher familism and lower acculturation that are linked to lower substance use behaviors (Gil et al., 2000; Telzer et al., 2014), we examined the models separately for adolescents in immigrant and non-immigrant families. We also statistically tested whether the links were different across these groups.

Data were drawn from the first wave of an ongoing study of 283 8th grade Latina/o students in a Southwestern state. Students reported their subjective perceptions of Latina/o students’ social status at their school, the frequency that they witnessed peer- or teacher-perpetrated ethnic discrimination directed towards other students, school interracial climate, and how hard it was for students to fit in the school if they were not the same race/ethnicity as most other students. Participants also reported whether they approved of people drinking alcohol or smoking marijuana. A host of covariates were included. Multi-group analyses were conducted in an SEM framework.

As shown in Figure 1, for Latina/o students in non-immigrant families, witnessing peer-perpetrated discrimination, poor school interracial climate, and misfit due to race/ethnicity were associated with higher levels of substance approval. Conversely, for adolescents in immigrant families, none of the indicators of school racial climate were linked to substance use approval (Figure 2). Moderation analyses examining differences by family immigration status showed significant differences across families. Specifically, for students in non-immigrant families, higher levels of witnessing peer-perpetrated discrimination and higher reports of misfit due to race were both associated with higher marijuana approval, and higher reports of misfit were also related to higher alcohol approval. In contrast, for students in immigrant families, marijuana and alcohol approval were not influenced by witnessing discrimination or reports of misfit due to race. These results provide some evidence that less acculturated adolescents (likely those in immigrant families) tend to be at lower risk for substance use despite their potential exposure to various stressors linked to their families’ immigration status. For future analyses, we will test these models with alcohol and marijuana use in 9th grade as outcomes. The findings may inform prevention and intervention programs in addressing alcohol and marijuana use among Latina/o adolescents in the United States.

Authors

• Farin Bakhtiari, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Celeste Fernandez, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Aprile D. Benner, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author