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Preventing the Link Between SES and High-Risk Behaviors: “Value-Added” Education, Drug Use and Delinquency in High-Risk, Urban Schools

Prevention Science volume 12, pages 211–221 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

We examined whether schools achieving better than expected educational outcomes for their students influence the risk of drug use and delinquency among urban, racial/ethnic minority youth. Adolescents (n = 2,621), who were primarily African American and Hispanic and enrolled in Chicago public schools (n = 61), completed surveys in 6th (aged 12) and 8th (aged 14) grades. Value-added education was derived from standardized residuals of regression equations predicting school-level academic achievement and attendance from students’ sociodemographic profiles and defined as having higher academic achievement and attendance than that expected given the sociodemographic profile of the schools’ student composition. Multilevel logistic regression estimated the effects of value-added education on students’ drug use and delinquency. After considering initial risk behavior, value-added education was associated with lower incidence of alcohol, cigarette and marijuana use; stealing; and participating in a group-against-group fight. Significant beneficial effects of value-added education remained for cigarette and marijuana use, stealing and participating in a group-against-group fight after adjustment for individual- and school-level covariates. Alcohol use (past month and heavy episodic) showed marginally significant trends in the hypothesized direction after these adjustments. Inner-city schools may break the links between social disadvantage, drug use and delinquency. Identifying the processes related to value-added education in order to improve school environments is warranted given the high costs associated with individual-level interventions.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities under grants R01 AA013458 and R01 AA016549 to Kelli A. Komro, Principal Investigator. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Project Northland Chicago research team for their contributions in collecting these data and the participation of students and parents in the Project Northland Chicago trial.

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Affiliations

  1. College of Medicine, Department of Health Outcomes and Policy, University of Florida, 1329 SW 16th Street, Rm 5130, Box 100177, Gainesville, FL, 32610-0177, USA

    Amy L. Tobler, Kelli A. Komro & Alexis Dabroski

  2. Primary Care Clinical Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Paul Aveyard

  3. School of Health and Social Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Wolfgang A. Markham

Authors
  1. Amy L. Tobler
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  2. Kelli A. Komro
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  3. Alexis Dabroski
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  4. Paul Aveyard
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  5. Wolfgang A. Markham
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amy L. Tobler.

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Tobler, A.L., Komro, K.A., Dabroski, A. et al. Preventing the Link Between SES and High-Risk Behaviors: “Value-Added” Education, Drug Use and Delinquency in High-Risk, Urban Schools. Prev Sci 12, 211–221 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-011-0206-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-011-0206-9

Keywords

  • Schools
  • Drug use
  • Delinquency
  • Urban
  • Adolescents