EPA-0208 - Commitment to school, opinion on drugs, and the extent of their use among a group of highschool juniors

Abstract

According to Hawkins and Weise's theory of social development, school is one of the most influuential agents on the process of social development. The absence of commitment to school can bring about many problems of maladjustment including drug abuse among student. Nowadays, that we are faced with an increased tendency towards drug use among Iranian youths, we are also witnessing an earlier age at which drug use is reported. The present research has been aimed at providing some basic information on students' commitment to school, their knowledge and beliefs about drugs, and the extent to which they use different types of drugs, in order to help with the development of prevention skims in the city of Aligoodarz. A sample of 200 high school juniors, out of a total of 856 such students in Aligoodarz, which happened to be located on one of the major drug trafficking roots in the country, was selected and given a set of questionnaires on school commitment, opinion on drugs, and the extent of probable use. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results show that a noticeable number of the students are soft drug users, while the number of those who have a positive opinion on drug use and a low commitment to school, are also large enough to be alarming. Thus educational intervention seen to be a necessary aspect of any prevention program in order to change students' opinion on drug use and improve their commitment to school.