An ongoing goal of research on adolescent drug abuse has been to identify those factors which predict the onset of this behavior. Drug use by adolescents can be viewed from two very different perspectives. On the one hand, it can be seen as a form of deviant behavior which is a result of prior socialization and developmental experiences. An alternative perspective on drug use and misuse by adolescents is as a cultural phenomenon, a kind of behavior which has become """"""""normative"""""""" or acceptable among adolescents who live in a drug-oriented society. This is a proposal for a five-year drug-abuse prevention research project. The project will study the experiences of approximately 1,055 students entering the fourth grade in twelve elementary schools in Seattle, Washington, in September, 1984. The project has two general goals: (1) To study the etiology of drug use among youths from the first through the eighth grades; (2) to compare experimentally the effects of prevention strategies for adolescent drug use and abuse. Three experimental conditions will be tested against one another and against control conditions using experimental designs with random assignment to conditions within schools. Two experimental conditions will consist of developmentally adjusted school, family and peer focused interventions derived from a social developmental theory of behavior and initiated at different stages of pre-adolescent development. The third condition will consist of a drug-abuse prevention curriculum. Outcome measures will include self-reported drug use, attitudes toward use, beliefs regarding use, perceptions of peers' use, intentions regarding use, and perceptions of the consequences of use.
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