Effects of Parental Monitoring, Permissiveness, and InjunctiveNorms on Substance Use Among Mexican and MexicanAmerican Adolescents

Sarah Voisine, Monica Parsai, Flavio F. Marsiglia, Stephen Kulis, and Tanya Nieri

AbstractThe prevention literature has given little attention to how parental influences affect substance useamong Mexican origin adolescents, even though they form part of the largest ethnic minoritygroup in the United States. This study explored the effects of three types of parental influences—parental monitoring of the child's whereabouts, degree of parental permissiveness, and the strengthof parental injunctive norms discouraging substance use—on alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana useand anti-drug norms. Results showed that parental permissiveness and parental injunctive norms,particularly anti-drug injunctive norms, had the strongest effects on the substance use outcomes,but parental monitoring generally was not a significant predictor. These results and implicationsfor prevention are discussed in light of Mexican cultural norms toward substance use, genderroles, and family roles.

Latinos, specifically Mexican Americans, represent a large and rapidly growing segment ofthe U.S. population. Latinos account for 12.5 percent of the total population, and nearlythree fifths of them identify themselves as Mexican or Mexican American (U.S. CensusBureau, 2000). In the southwestern states bordering Mexico, people of Mexican descentrepresent one quarter to two fifths of the residents (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002) and evenlarger percentages of the enrolled students in large urban school districts. Despite theirgrowing presence in our schools, many issues relating to risk and protective factors forsubstance use have not been explored for Mexican origin adolescents specifically. Nationalstudies show that among early adolescents (eighth graders), Latinos have reported higherrates of alcohol and illicit drug use than Whites and African Americans for over a decade(Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2005). Mexican heritage adolescents alsoreport more substance offers than do non-Hispanic Whites (Hecht, Trost, Bator, &MacKinnon, 1997; Marsiglia, Kulis & Hecht, 2001; Moon, Hecht, Jackson, & Spellers,1999). The use of substances during adolescence is of concern because it is a risk factor fora variety of developmental, legal, and health risks (Ellickson, Tucker, & Klein, 2003; Miller,Alberts, Hecht, Trost, & Krizek, 2000).

Researchers have correlated a number of ecological factors with substance use amongadolescents, including parental relationships with their children (Ary, Duncan, Duncan, &Hops, 1999; Flannery, Williams, & Vazsonyi, 1999; Marsiglia & Waller, 2002; Mounts,2001; Mott, Crowe, Richardson, & Flay, 1999). Still, the literature has seldom focused onthe experiences of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. The intent of this study is to advanceour understanding of how different facets of parental influence on adolescents—specifically,

©2008 Alliance for Children and FamiliesCorrespondence concerning this article should be addressed to the fourth author at kulis@asu.edu or School of Social and FamilyDynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-3701..

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monitoring of children's whereabouts, parental permissiveness, and parents' injunctivenorms—relate to substance use behaviors and norms of Mexican and Mexican Americanadolescents, using ecological risk and resiliency theory as an interpretive framework. Givingconsideration to traditional Mexican and Mexican American gender roles, we expected tofind more substance use among adolescents who are exposed to higher levels of parentalpermissiveness, weaker parental injunctive norms against substance use, and lower levels ofparental monitoring. However, we expected that the effects of parental permissiveness andmonitoring, but not parental injunctive norms, would be greater among girls than boys.These expectations are derived in the following discussions through an understanding of therole of familismo, respeto, machismo, and marianismo in Mexican culture. Rather thanrelying on stereotypes of a homogeneous Latino culture, this study aims to elucidate thespecific experiences of Mexican and Mexican American adolescents and provide insight intoculturally grounded interventions that may promote the resilience of these groups.

Parental Monitoring, Permissiveness, Injunctive Norms, and GenderParents who are concerned about preventing their adolescent children from engaging insubstance use may look to a variety of personal and community resources for information.The media, through public service announcements, instructs parents to “Ask who, askwhere, ask when,” proposing a knowledge-based approach to parental monitoring.Monitoring may be defined as the extent to which parents watch, supervise, and stay awareof their children's activities (Bahr, Maughan, Marcos, & Li, 1998). Adolescents whoseparents provide less parental monitoring have been found to engage in higher rates ofsubstance use and other antisocial behaviors (Ary et al., 1999; Flannery et al., 1999;Marsiglia & Waller, 2002; Mounts, 2001; Mott et al., 1999). One may argue that there areseveral different types of control parents have over their children, including not onlyidentifying the child's whereabouts, but also following up to ensure that the child is wherethe child has claimed to be, knowing the child's friends and their parents, and connectingmonitoring to injunctive norms and to a degree of permissiveness through the establishmentof expectations for behavior and consequences for inappropriate behavior.

Parental permissiveness refers to the degree to which parents have requirements for theirchildren's behavior (Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991). Highly permissiveparenting styles have been associated with children's poor academic performance,involvement in delinquency (Shumow, Vandell, & Posner, 1998), and drug use (Brook,Cohen, Whiteman, & Gordon, 1992). Substance-using adolescents are more likely to haveparents who exercise low monitoring and high permissiveness (Barnes, Reifman, Farrell, &Dintcheff, 2000; Komro & Toomey, 2002).

Parental injunctive norms refer to the adolescents' perceptions of their parents' expectationsfor their behavior, including the parents' expected reaction to the adolescents' use ofsubstances (Li, Stanton, & Feigelman, 2000). Research on adolescent risk behaviors hasfound that perceptions play an important role in behavior, including substance use (Li et al.,2000). Although parental monitoring and injunctive norms are separate constructs,perception is a powerful aspect of injunctive norms, and its importance is demonstratedthrough the finding that adolescents who perceive less parental monitoring are consistentlymore likely to engage in the use of marijuana and alcohol (DiClemente, Wingood, Crosby,Sionean, Cobb, Harrington, Davies, Hook, & Oh, 2001).

Aspects of parental influences may differ across ethnic groups because they are shaped byculture-specific norms and by ecological factors such as acculturation, which is of particularrelevance in the Southwest, a region experiencing a high rate of immigration. In Mexicanand Mexican American families, researchers have identified the strength of the family as a

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core cultural feature and as a primary protective factor against youth substance use (Holleran& Waller, 2003; Hovey, 2000; Marsiglia & Waller, 2002). The value of family-centeredness, called familismo, involves the provision of advice, counseling, support,behavior modeling, and close monitoring of children's activities and relationships.Familismo is thought to buffer the effects of acculturation stress experienced by adolescents(Balls Organista, Organista, & Kurasaki, 2003; Marsiglia & Waller, 2002).

Traditional Mexican families may raise their children to adopt gender-specific values suchas machismo and marianismo. Machismo can be conceptualized within two seeminglyconflicting dimensions that apply to males: one dimension emphasizes aggressive,controlling behavior and patriarchal dominance, the second dimension focuses on positivecharacteristics such as honor, respect for self and others (respeto), commitment, andresponsibility (Kulis, Marsiglia, & Hurdle, 2003). Machismo grants greater independenceand social freedom to boys as compared to girls while instilling, at the same time, a sense ofresponsibility and accountability even in the absence of strict monitoring. The culturalconstruct of marianismo could be considered to complement machismo through itsconceptualization of girls and women as possessing humility, nurturance, devotion tofamily, and spiritual superiority. Marianismo attributes great personal strength to womeneven while it restricts the social experiences of girls and emphasizes a collectivist approachand obligation to family (Kulis et al., 2003).

Research that has focused on Mexican and Mexican American gender roles suggests thatadherence to traditional gender roles may protect adolescents from substance use risk(Marsiglia & Holleran, 1999; Moon et al., 1999). Girls raised under a marianista cultureoften experience a greater degree of parental monitoring and a lower degree ofpermissiveness. Giving consideration to traditional Mexican and Mexican American genderroles, we would expect to find a stronger relationship between parental influences andsubstance use by girls, with high permissiveness associated with greater substance use andmore positive substance norms. The fact that traditional Mexican males enjoy a greaterdegree of social freedom than females suggests that parental monitoring and permissivenessmay be less crucial determinants of boys' exposure to substance use offers. In fact,particularly for more acculturated Mexican American boys, there is freedom to operatewithin a masculine culture of risk-taking that may increase their likelihood of engaging insubstance use (Kulis et al., 2003). At the same time, however, for Mexican and MexicanAmerican males who ascribe to the positive values of machismo, parents' anti-druginjunctive norms could promote resilience to drug use by encouraging males to embodyprinciples of dignity, honor, and respect and to fulfill their responsibility to family.

Risk and ResiliencyThis study is conducted from a risk and resiliency perspective, utilizing an ecologicalframework. Ecological risk and resiliency theory examines the interactive effects of risk andprotective factors on the individual within both relational and social contexts(Bogenschneider, 1996; Fraser & Galinsky, 1997; Marsiglia & Waller, 2002). Like othertheories that take family, peer, and community influences into account to examine substanceuse among adolescents, including the eco-developmental (Szapocznik & Williams, 2000)and social development models (Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992), ecological risk andresiliency theory recognizes the complex mingling of influences at different levels of socialorganization that shape youth behaviors. By specifically noting cultural influences onbehavior, both positive and negative, the theory is particularly useful for understanding theexperiences of Mexican and Mexican American youth as they navigate within anenvironment in which they form a numerically substantial yet non-dominant group. Throughthis perspective, all of the threads that compose the person's environment become

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interwoven into the fabric that represents that person's experience. Although understandingrisks inherent to interactions between and within cultural groups is important for drugprevention, understanding protective factors is equally important for identifying strategies topromote resiliency, given that protective factors have been found to moderate against risk,yielding both direct and indirect effects on drug use (Felix-Ortiz & Newcomb, 1999;Marsiglia & Waller, 2002; Moon, Jackson, & Hecht, 2000).

It is important, therefore, to consider the sources of resiliency within the Mexican andMexican American community. Sources of resilience can be found in Spanish languagepreference (Marsiglia and Waller, 2002), female adherence to traditional gender roles (Kuliset al., 2003; Marsiglia and Holleran, 1999; Moon et al, 1999), and positive ethnic identity(Gamst, Dana, Der-Karabetian, Aragon, Arellan, & Kramer, 2002; Holleran and Waller,2003; Marsiglia, Kulis, & Hecht, 2001; Orozco and Lukas, 2000). Additionally, Marsiglia,Miles, Dustman, and Sills (2002) observed the emergence of three resiliency themes, whichhave been supported in the literature (e.g. Ary et al., 1999; Feiring and Lewis, 1993;Flannery, Williams, & Vazsonyi, 1999; Mott et al., 1999), in their ethnographic study ofMexican and Mexican American adolescents in the Southwest: (a) parental control, (b)parental support, and (c) shared time. This study seeks to expand the current understandingof how parental control promotes resilience to adolescent drug use through an examinationof what parenting practices are most closely associated with lower drug use among thispopulation. Understanding these sources could lead to the development and implementationof effective drug-resistance strategies to reduce the risk created by other factors that promotedrug use.

MethodologyData

This study utilizes secondary analysis of data drawn from the pre-test surveys of arandomized trial of a drug-prevention program administered to middle school students froma Southwestern city in the United States (for details, see Hecht, Marsiglia, Elek, Wagstaff,Kulis, & Dustman, 2003). Surveys were administered in classrooms at 35 schools that hadpreviously been assigned through block randomization to experimental and controlconditions, accounting for variations in school size and ethnic composition. Institutionalreview boards at the investigators' university and at each school district reviewed andapproved the recruitment and prevention program implementation procedures. Theinvestigators obtained authorization from the school districts, principals, and teachers, andthen the parents of participating students were sent a letter explaining the purpose of thestudy, giving their passive consent.

During survey administration, proctors informed the students about the voluntary nature ofthe project and guaranteed confidentiality for those who chose to answer the surveys. Allstudents who were present on the day of the surveys chose to participate. The pre-test datawere collected in seventh grade classes during fall 1998, before the prevention program wasbegun. To maximize the number of questionnaire items that could be included in the datacollection, a three-form planned missing design was utilized such that there were threeversions of the questionnaire, each containing a core of common questions plussupplemental questions. Each of the supplemental questions, which included those related toparental influences, was distributed such that they were split across two of the threequestionnaire versions. Therefore, only students responding to one of the versions of thequestionnaire—about one third of the total sample—were able to provide complete data forthis study. Because the various questionnaire versions were distributed at random withinclassrooms, t-tests indicated there were no significant mean differences in the demographicsor drug use profiles of students who completed different versions of the questionnaire.

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Because this study seeks to explore in depth the specific experiences of Mexican heritageyouth, rather than to compare them to other ethnic groups, this study restricted the analysisto only those respondents who identified themselves as Mexican or Mexican American.Among this group, 729 respondents provided complete information on the parental variablesof interest. The sample was nearly gender-balanced (51% male and 49% female).

MeasuresThe key outcomes examined in this study are Likert-type items that summarize the students'behaviors and attitudes concerning alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use. Substance use wasmeasured by reported recent use identified as amount of alcohol, cigarettes, or marijuanaused within the past 30 days. These questions were modeled after questions previously usedby Flannery, Flannery, Vazsonyi, Torquati, and Fridrich (1994) and were chosen for theirdevelopmental appropriateness for the age group under study, and their successful use with aMexican-heritage youth population (Kulis, Marsiglia, Elek, Dustman, Wagstaff, & Hecht,2005). The Likert-scale items ranged from 1 = none to 9 = over 30 (alcohol) drinks withinthe past 30 days; 1 = none to 8 = more than two packs (of cigarettes) within the past 30days; and 1 = none to 8 = more than 40 hits (of marijuana) in the past 30 days. Because thedistribution was skewed toward low drug use, responses were logged to improve model fit inregression analyses. High scores on these measures correspond to higher amounts ofsubstance use. In addition to examining them separately, a composite substance use scalewas constructed by taking the mean of the last 30-day alcohol, cigarette, and marijuanameasures.

Personal drug norms were measured by three questions about the student's opinions onwhether the use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana is “okay for someone your age.” Thescale was scored from 1 = definitely okay to 4 = definitely not okay with higher valuesindicating stronger anti-drug norms. When combined into a single additive scale, Cronbach'salpha was .86 for these three items.

Three types of parental variables were measured: monitoring of the child's whereabouts,parental permissiveness, and parental injunctive norms. Monitoring of the child'swhereabouts was measured by a single item that captured how often the parents ask wherethe youth is going upon leaving the house. Answers ranged from 1 = never to 5 = most of thetime. A higher score indicated a higher level of monitoring. Parental permissiveness wasmeasured by three variables that asked students to indicate the degree of their parents'permissiveness. Responses ranged from 1 to 4, with high values indicating a higher degreeof permissiveness. First, students identified how often their parents let them go places or dothings with others of their own age. Second, respondents identified how often their parentsallow them to drink alcohol at parties. Third, respondents identified how often their parentsallow them to go out whenever they want.

Parental injunctive norms were measured by three questions asking the adolescents'perceptions of how angry their parents would be if the youth used alcohol, cigarettes, andmarijuana. Responses ranged from 1 = not at all angry to 4 = very angry, with higher valuessuggesting stronger anti-drug norms. These variables were combined in a single additivescale with a Cronbach's alpha of .72.

Linguistic acculturation, a powerful predictor of drug use (Epstein, Botvin & diaz, 2000,2001; Marsiglia & Waller, 2002; Marsiglia, Kulis, Wagstaff, Elek, & Dran, 2005), wasmeasured by students' reported use of English and Spanish. Students were asked whatlanguage they usually use when speaking with their family, and when speaking with theirfriends. These two items were averaged. Answers ranged from 1 = Spanish only to 5 =English only. The Cronbach's alpha for these two items revealed a reliability of .76. Students

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who spoke Spanish with their friends and family all or most of the time were considered lesslinguistically acculturated than the group that spoke English most or all of the time.

Age was calculated in years based on date of birth, while each student identified their genderas male or female. Student participation in the federal lunch program acted as a measure ofsocioeconomic status, with receipt of a reduced-cost or free lunch indicating lower status.School achievement was measured by the student's report of their usual grades. Responsesranged from 1 to 9 with higher values indicative of better grades.

Analysis StrategyThis study examines the extent to which three forms of parental influences—monitoring of achild's whereabouts, parental permissiveness, and parental injunctive norms—may affectdrug use in a group of Mexican and Mexican American girls and boys, and whether theeffects differ according to the youth's gender. Initial tests explored bivariate correlationsbetween the dependent variables, parental influence variables, and control variables.Relationships were further explored through ordinary least squares (OLS) multipleregression, showing the influence of parental factors after controlling for age,socioeconomic status (SES), academic performance, and acculturation. Models wereestimated separately by gender to examine how the parents may influence substance use,norms, and expectations in different ways or to different degrees for female and maleadolescents of Mexican background.

ResultsTable 1 presents descriptive statistics and correlations for selected dependent andindependent variables. The students were age-typical for seventh grade, falling primarilybetween ages 12 and 13 (86%), and were mostly from lower income families as indicated bytheir receipt of either a free (84%) or reduced-cost school lunch (7%). Although use ofalcohol was more common than use of cigarettes or marijuana, large majorities of thestudents did not use any of these substances. The proportion of students reporting use in thelast 30 days was 23% for alcohol, 12% for cigarettes, and 14% for marijuana. Similarlysmall minorities of students approved of substance use as being definitely okay or okay forsomeone their age: 16% for alcohol, 12% for cigarettes, and 14% for marijuana. Higherlevels of acculturation, which indicated greater use of English rather than Spanish, werecorrelated with more recent substance use and weaker anti-drug personal norms. Olderstudents and students with lower grades also reported weaker anti-drug norms and higheramounts of recent substance use. Students reported less drug use and stronger anti-drugnorms if they had high levels of parental monitoring of their whereabouts or stronger anti-drug parental injunctive norms (i.e., they thought their parents would get angry if they foundout their children used alcohol, cigarettes, or marijuana). In contrast, students with lowerscores on two of the parental permissiveness measures reported greater amounts of recentdrug use and weaker anti-drug norms. Tests for differences in means and chi-square testsfrom cross-tabulations (not presented) showed that boys were more likely than girls to usecigarettes and marijuana—and they used higher amounts—but there were no genderdifferences in alcohol use. Boys were also less likely than girls to disapprove of use of allthree substances.

Multiple regression models predicted for each gender separately the amount of recent druguse (see Table 2) and anti-drug norms (see Table 3), controlling for age, gender, usualgrades, socioeconomic status, and linguistic acculturation. Two of the three permissivenessmeasures were significant predictors of recent substance use, but more consistently so forgirls than for boys. For boys, only one kind of permissiveness was associated with greatersubstance use: how often parents allow the youth to drink alcohol at parties. For girls too,

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this same kind of permissiveness was associated with greater alcohol, cigarette, andmarijuana use. In addition, for girls alone, how often parents allowed their children to go outwhenever they want was a significant predictor of greater use of all three substances.

Another parental factor, strong anti-drug parental injunctive norms, was negativelyassociated with the amount of use for all three substances for boys, and for all but cigaretteuse among girls. In contrast, controlling for other parental and demographic variables,monitoring of children's whereabouts was unrelated to substance use for boys and for girls.Turning to control variables, boys at older ages reported significantly more alcohol andmarijuana use, but age was unrelated to girls' use of any substance. Students with highergrades generally reported less use of substances, with the exception of girls' reports ofcigarette use. Lower socioeconomic status was negatively associated with cigarette andmarijuana use among boys but not among girls. In contrast, higher linguistic acculturationwas positively associated with cigarette and marijuana use among girls but not among boys.

As shown in Table 3, among boys, none of the parent permissiveness measures relatedsignificantly to substance-specific anti-drug norms. Two of the three permissivenessmeasures predicted girls' espousal of anti-drug norms. The greater frequency with whichparents allowed their children to drink at parties, the weaker were the anti-drug normsespoused by girls, and this result held for all three substances. The greater frequency withwhich parents allowed their daughters to go out whenever they wanted, the weaker were theanti-drug norms, specific to cigarettes and marijuana, espoused by girls. The lone effect ofmonitoring the child's whereabouts was its positive association with cigarette-specific anti-drug norms for girls alone. As in the case of substance use outcomes in Table 2, parentalinjunctive norms were a significant predictor of the youth's anti-drug norms for both boysand girls and for all three substances. Stronger parental injunctive norms were associatedconsistently with stronger anti-drug norms.

Age and socioeconomic status were not significantly related to the youths' anti-drug norms.Adolescents of both genders with higher grades reported stronger cigarette- and marijuana-specific anti-drug norms. Linguistic acculturation did not significantly predict anti-drugnorms for boys. For girls, however, higher acculturation was associated with weaker anti-drug norms, regardless of substance.

DiscussionThe results of this study suggest that parental permissiveness and parental injunctive normsare stronger factors in Mexican and Mexican American adolescent substance use thanparents' monitoring of children's whereabouts. This finding may be explained bycircumstances specific to the Mexican and Mexican American experience. One issue ofconcern for many Mexican and Mexican American families is the acculturation gapexperienced by parents and children who speak English in different degrees. Because lessacculturated parents often do not speak English as well as their children, their ability tomonitor their children may be undermined by their inability to communicate with theirchildren's English-speaking parents and friends (Gil & Vega, 1994; Weisskirch & Alva,2002). Therefore, the parents must depend on their children to be honest with them whenproviding information. If children do not provide accurate information about their activities,it may be difficult for parents to follow up.

Additionally, Mexican and Mexican American families who maintain traditional values mayinstill in their children the values of familismo, machismo, and marianismo. These valuesplace greater emphasis on expectations for children's behavior, perhaps accounting for theconsistent findings here that parental injunctive norms were associated with less adolescent

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substance use. Familismo provides advice, counseling, support, and modeling of behavior,in addition to protective monitoring of children's activities and relationships, and is thoughtto buffer the effects of acculturation stress experienced by adolescents (Balls organista et al.,2003; Marsiglia & Waller, 2002).

Machismo, associated with such characteristics as commitment, dignity, honor, and respectfor self and others, can be undermined by the acculturation experience as individualsstruggle with the dominant society's tendency to denigrate the status of Mexican andMexican American men in the United States (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994). Similarly, thetraditional female quality of marianismo, which emphasizes women's spiritual grace andconnection to the Virgin Mary through acts of submission and self-denial for the sake of thefamily (Gil & Vasquez, 1996; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994; Marsiglia & Holleran, 1999), couldprotect Mexican and Mexican American girls through expectations that girls will keep closeto home with their social interactions closely supervised (Marsiglia & Holleran, 1999; Moonet al., 1999).

These cultural values might also explain some of the variance by gender in the effects ofpermissiveness and monitoring of whereabouts for anti-drug norms. Boys who are raisedwith the value of machismo may be accustomed to having greater freedom in their socialexperiences, learning to interact with others in the absence of strict parental monitoring orlimited permissiveness. Such boys may carry with them the expectation that they areaccountable to their families as they behave in a manner that either honors or shames theirfamilies. Thus, parental injunctive norms may become more important than direct parentalmonitoring in helping boys to determine whether it is acceptable for them to use substances.The instances where parental permissiveness was influential in boys' substance use—whentheir parents allowed them to drink at parties—may reflect traditional Mexican norms thatare much more accepting of alcohol and substance use by men than by women.

For Mexican heritage girls, the opposite may be true. Those girls raised in a culture ofmarianismo are taught that they have obligations to their home and family, and theseobligations often serve to restrict their social encounters. In this climate, then, it would beexpected that girls would experience a greater degree of effective parental control and lowpermissiveness as their social interactions are more limited to family and close friends, withemphasis placed on girls' fulfillment of duties within the home. Similarly, the culture ofmarianismo associates girls with the Virgin Mary, suggesting that girls' behavior shouldmodel the piety and moral rectitude of the mother of God. Such expectations for girls maybe reflected in the importance of parental injunctive norms as a factor in adolescentsubstance use behaviors and norms.

Beyond these possible cultural interactions is the underlying issue that it appears to be morerelevant to Mexican and Mexican American adolescents for parents to exercise activeparental influences or techniques, such as offering their children guidance through lowpermissiveness and providing expectations that there will be consequences for their behaviorin the form of injunctive norms. In this study it was not the actual monitoring or degree ofpermissiveness, but the anticipated parental response that appeared to deter children mosteffectively from substance use or from adopting pro-drug norms. This finding suggests thatMexican and Mexican American families should be encouraged to parent their childrenthrough establishing limits and expectations for their behaviors rather than relying solely ontheir children to inform them about their activities. If parental monitoring is based oninformation requested by the parent and provided by the child, the parents are relying uponthe child to take responsibility for monitoring by providing accurate information to theparents. It is, therefore, an activity of the child (Stattin & Kerr, 2000). If the parents engage

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in active monitoring of their children, they may also need to incorporate injunctive normsthat discourage drug use and limit their permissiveness.

This finding has implications for program development of culturally grounded preventionand intervention techniques when working with Mexican and Mexican American families.Placing the findings within the context of ecological risk and resiliency theory, the resultssuggest that programs that emphasize parental involvement or that utilize the traditionalvalues of machismo for boys, marianismo for girls, and familismo for all youths and familiesmight be most effective in promoting resilience to substance use among Mexicans andMexican Americans. Rather than promote information-based monitoring, preventiontechniques should involve the strengths of Mexican and Mexican American family values,encouraging families to establish expectations and consequences for their children'sbehaviors, as well as encouraging parents to play an active role in supervising theirchildren's social interactions.

There is a propensity among the dominant White culture to prefer that non-dominant andimmigrant cultures acculturate to the dominant culture. However, the findings of this studyunderscore the dilemmas that acculturation presents for Mexican and Mexican Americanadolescents. The Mexican and Mexican American culture provides adolescents withculturally embedded protective factors that may be devalued or lost as adolescentsacculturate to the dominant culture. This may be particularly true with gender roles, as themachismo role has been historically denigrated and portrayed in caricature form by theWhite culture, and the marianismo role, so protective against substance use for girls, may beperceived as contradicting the feminist culture of the United States.

For practitioners who utilize strengths-based practice, these findings illuminate strengthsinherent within the Mexican and Mexican American community through the protectiveinfluence of language, parental injunctive norms, and parental control, demonstrated throughlimited permissiveness. These strengths highlight factors that can be promoted andsupported by practitioners working with this population in the Southwest. Similarly, policymakers can attend to findings that elucidate resilience factors and use these to influence theirdecisions about policy. Language has been a particularly divisive issue throughout theUnited States, and policies promoting English language use have been widely promoted, yetthe findings here suggest that continued use of the Spanish language may be a strongprotective factor for Mexican and Mexican American youth. More study of the issue will beneeded to clarify how and why Spanish language preference is protective, serving to shapefuture policy related to language use and biculturalism.

The findings of this study cannot be generalized to all Latino families, although this was notthe intention of the study. Rather, the study sought to refine the present knowledge ofsubstance use prevention by exploring the responses of Mexicans and Mexican Americansin the Southwest. Therefore, the results of this study may be generalized to all Mexicans andMexican Americans and serve to expand the present understanding of culturally-groundedprevention to incorporate into the Mexican and Mexican American culture.

This study builds upon the current prevention literature through examination of substanceuse among Mexican and Mexican American adolescents in the Southwest. Like otherinquiries in this area, the current study was unable to measure “culture” directly, andspeculative explanations about the youths' motivations regarding substance use— forexample, that girls abstain because of the influence of marianismo—need to be exploredmore deeply through more in-depth qualitative research. Future studies that delve into theexperiences of specific cultural groups may elucidate culture-specific strategies that canprotect against the risk for substance use and may inform policy and program development

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relating to prevention. Such study will further the understanding of cultural experience andsocietal contributions to substance use among adolescents.

AcknowledgmentsThis research was supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse grants (RO1DA005629/Hecht PI, R01 DA14825/Marsiglia PI and R24 DA13937/Marsiglia PI). Its contents are solely theresponsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

BiographySarah Voisine, MSW, completed her master's degree at Arizona State University and isbeginning doctoral studies in social work at Fordham University. Monica Parsai, MSW, isa doctoral student in the School of Social Work, and project coordinator at the SouthwestInterdisciplinary Research Center, Arizona State University. Flavio F. Marsiglia, PhD, isfoundation professor of Cultural Diversity and Health in the School of Social Work, anddirector of the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, Arizona State University.Stephen Kulis, PhD, is a Cowden Distinguished Professor of Social and Family Dynamics,and director of research at the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, Arizona StateUniversity. Tanya Nieri, PhD, is a research assistant professor of Social Work, and researchcoordinator at the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, Arizona State University.

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Tabl

e 1

Des

crip

tive

Stat

istic

s

Cor

rela

tion

with

Var

iabl

eN

Mea

nSD

Rec

ent d

rug

use1

Ant

i-dru

g no

rms

Ant

i-dru

g no

rms

729

3.19

0.8

79−.536

**

Rec

ent a

lcoh

ol u

se72

7.4

52.6

81.8

42**

−.436

**

Rec

ent c

igar

ette

use

729

.164

.447

.745

**−.387

**

Rec

ent m

ariju

ana

use

727

.257

.600

.843

**−.480

**

Age

702

12.5

40.6

56.1

37**

−.102

**

Usu

al g

rade

s72

46.

470

1.90

0−.219

**.1

63**

SES:

0=N

eith

er 1

=Fre

e or

redu

ced

lunc

h72

1.9

08.2

88−.114

**.0

39

Ling

uist

ic a

ccul

tura

tion

726

1.98

0.6

10.1

11**

−.098

**

Mon

itor c

hild

's w

here

abou

ts72

94.

330

1.12

0−.158

**.1

80**

Perm

issi

vene

ss

A

llow

to d

o th

ings

/go

out

729

2.88

01.

300

.048

−.010

A

llow

to d

rink

alco

hol a

t par

ties

729

1.37

0.7

01.3

48**

−.320

**

A

llow

out

whe

neve

r72

93.

030

1.30

0.1

81**

−.198

**

Pare

ntal

inju

nctiv

e no

rms

729

3.48

0.8

32−.413

**.3

89**

1 Com

posi

te m

easu

re (m

ean)

of r

ecen

t alc

ohol

, cig

aret

te, a

nd m

ariju

ana

use.

* p <

0.05

leve

l,

**p

< 0.

01 le

vel.

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Tabl

e 2

Pred

icto

rs o

f Rec

ent A

lcoh

ol, C

igar

ette

, and

Mar

ijuan

a U

se b

y G

ende

r

Var

iabl

eA

lcoh

olC

igar

ette

sM

ariju

ana

Mal

eFe

mal

eM

ale

Fem

ale

Mal

eFe

mal

e

Age

.130

*−.024

.050

−.048

.135

**.0

60

(.056

)(.0

47)

(.041

)(.0

29)

(.052

)(.0

38)

Usu

al g

rade

s−.039

*−.032

−.032

*−.031

**−.046

**−.040

**

(.019

)(.0

18)

(.014

)(.0

11)

(.018

)(.0

14)

SES:

Fre

e or

redu

ced

lunc

h−.168

−.138

−.191

**−.038

−.304

**.1

30

(.108

)(.1

32)

(.079

)(.0

80)

(.099

)(.1

07)

Ling

uist

ic a

ccul

tura

tion

.038

.083

−.030

.064

*−.022

.141

***

(.059

)(.0

52)

(.044

)(.0

32)

(.055

)(.0

42)

Mon

itor c

hild

's w

here

abou

ts.0

16.0

04−.023

−.015

−.005

.001

(.030

)(.0

35)

(.022

)(.0

21)

(.028

)(.0

29)

Perm

issi

vene

ss

A

llow

to d

o th

ings

/go

out

.022

−.016

.003

−.005

.023

.019

(.027

)(.0

24)

(.020

)(.0

15)

(.025

)(.0

20)

A

llow

to d

rink

at p

artie

s.1

78**

*.3

44**

*.0

88**

.090

**.0

95*

.117

**

(.050

)(.0

59)

(.037

)(.0

36)

(.047

)(.0

48)

A

llow

out

whe

neve

r−.008

.090

***

.018

.052

***

.015

.062

**

(.026

)(.0

26)

(.019

)(.0

15)

(.024

)(.0

21)

Pare

ntal

inju

nctiv

e no

rms

−.193

***

−.125

**−.123

***

−.046

−.183

***

−.215

***

(.045

)(.0

49)

(.033

)(.0

30)

(.042

)(.0

40)

R 2

.212

.223

.175

N33

035

333

135

433

035

3

Not

e. U

nsta

ndar

dize

d re

gres

sion

est

imat

es w

ith st

anda

rd e

rror

s in

pare

nthe

ses.

* p <

.05;

**p

< .0

1;

*** p

< .0

01.

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Tabl

e 3

Pred

icto

rs o

f Ant

i-dru

g U

se N

orm

s by

Subs

tanc

e an

d G

ende

r

Var

iabl

eA

lcoh

olC

igar

ette

sM

ariju

ana

Mal

eFe

mal

eM

ale

Fem

ale

Mal

eFe

mal

e

Age

.054

−.061

.044

.014

−.136

−.090

(.079

)(.0

56)

(.072

)(.0

55)

(.072

)(.0

62)

Usu

al g

rade

s.0

23(.0

21)

(.024

).0

45*

(.027

).0

13.0

52*

(.021

).0

69**

SES:

Fre

e or

redu

ced

lunc

h.0

42−.157

.154

−.282

.258

−.192

(.150

)(.1

57)

(.138

)(.1

53)

(.138

)(.1

74)

Ling

uist

ic a

ccul

tura

tion

.034

−.169

**.0

16−.144

**−.011

−.162

*

(.083

)(.0

62)

(.077

)(.0

61)

(.077

)(.0

69)

Mon

itor c

hild

's w

here

abou

ts.0

32.0

58.0

58.0

83*

.040

.007

(.042

)(.0

42)

(.039

)(.0

41)

(.039

)(.0

47)

Perm

issi

vene

ss

A

llow

to d

o th

ings

/go

out

.032

−.005

.032

.001

.033

−.055

(.038

)(.0

29)

(.035

)(.0

28)

(.035

)(.0

32)

A

llow

to d

rink

at p

artie

s−.124

−.363

***

−.062

−.240

***

−.093

−.256

***

(.071

)(.0

71)

(.065

)(.0

69)

(.064

)(.0

79)

A

llow

out

whe

neve

r−.058

−.089

**−.034

−.093

**−.022

−.093

**

(.037

)(.0

31)

(.034

)(.0

30)

(.034

)(.0

34)

Pare

ntal

inju

nctiv

e no

rms

.225

***

.188

**.2

50**

*.2

09**

*.3

32**

*.3

19**

*

(.063

)(.0

29)

(.058

)(.0

57)

(.058

)(.0

79)

R2.1

04.2

34.1

41.2

15.2

36.2

32

N33

035

233

135

332

935

2

Not

e. U

nsta

ndar

dize

d re

gres

sion

est

imat

es w

ith st

anda

rd e

rror

s in

pare

nthe

ses.

* p <

.05;

**p

< .0

1;

*** p

< .0

01.

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