The objective of the proposed study is to estimate theoretically informed models of intergenerational (dis) continuities in patterns of drug abuse and other deviant adaptations for a cohort of subjects tested several times between early adolescence and young adulthood and their children tested during early adolescence. Data for the first generation subjects (N=5,500) were obtained by self- administered questionnaire in the 7th grade, and household interviews when the subjects were in their 20s, and most recently, in their mid-to-late 30s. The children of this cohort who had reached early adolescence during the present five-year study period were interviewed in their households (N=4,800). During the proposed five-year study period an additional 2,120 children of the first generation will reach early adolescence and will be interviewed. The models will describe intergenerational (dis) continuities in drug abuse and other deviant adaptations (including violence, self-destructive behaviors, functional psychiatric disorders, criminal activities, deviation in the performance of conventional social roles, in addition to various patterns of drug abuse) for the two generations at a comparable developmental stage (early adolescence). The models will specify two broad classes of influences. First, the experiences of first generation subjects during adolescence (moderated by theoretically informed constructs) will influence their experiences during later stage of the life course and so indirectly affect second generation outcomes. These intervening variables include other deviant patterns, attitudes and behavioral responses of significant others, various social-relations contexts, chronic role strain, ascribed social identities, modes of coping, life events, personal and interpersonal resources, peer associations, self- feelings, and parenting as well as role performance in other institutional contexts. Second, intergenerational parallelism reflects common antecedents of deviant adaptations and their putative causes within each generation. Such causes include mutually influential subjective distress, normative definitions, opportunity structures, and their antecedents, consequences and moderators. Models will be estimated using multigroup structural equation models with latent variables as well as multivariate OLS and logistic regressions.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 15 publications
