Impacts of Parental Education on Substance Use: Differences among White, African-American, and Hispanic Students in 8th, 10th, and 12th Grades (1999-2008). Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper Series. Paper No. 70

The Monitoring the Future (MTF) project reports annually on levels and trends in self-reported substance use by secondary school students (e.g., Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2009). The reports include subgroup comparisons, and these have revealed substantial differences among race/ethnicity groups, as well as some differences linked to parental education (as the available indicator of socioeconomic level). These comparisons are complicated by the substantial differences in racial/ethnic composition across levels of parental education. The present paper disentangles the confounding of race/ethnicity with parental education by examining the three largest race/ethnicity groups separately, showing and comparing how parental education is related to three common forms of substance use/abuse among adolescents. The authors show important interaction effects: The negative relationship between parental education and substance use is more pronounced among White adolescents than among those who are African American or Hispanic. They also unmask relationships between parental education and substance use that are clearer for White adolescents than for the total sample. Furthermore, the appendix to this occasional paper compares product-moment correlations and linear regression results for five-year intervals (1999-2003 vs. 2004-2008), and shows that very few regression coefficients differ significantly. This appendix is titled, "Use of Various Drugs by Grade among All Male Respondents, 1999-2008." (Contains 1 table and 10 figures.)