Attitudes Towards School in Children of Alcoholics

Background and Purpose: Attitudes among children and adolescents provide a critical view into their vision of the world and their perceptions of their place within it. These attitudes also have an influence over the actual behavior displayed by the adolescents. Previous literature has shown that attitudes towards school are important predictors of some problem behaviors, especially behaviors such as substance use and delinquency. The purpose of this paper was to consider the role that negative attitudes towards school might play for a sample of Children of Alcoholics (COA). Of specific interest were how the negative attitudes towards school might relate to resiliency, as well as victimization, depression, aggression, and academic achievement.

Methods: Data were collected from 674 families participating in a bi-national (United States and Canada) family-based alcohol prevention intervention study . Families with at least one child between the ages of 9-12 and with one parent with alcoholic problems were eligible to participate. Children were assessed at program initiation, at its conclusion four months later, and at 8 and 16 months post-program initiation. Measures consisted of the following: overt and cover aggressive behavior, depression, victimization, coping strategies, teacher social support, academic achievement, and attitudes toward school. For purposes of this study, the initial assessment of attitudes towards school was broken down accordingly: bottom 20% negative, next 30% neutral, top 50% positive. This measure was then used to predict the behaviors of interest at subsequent timepoints. SPSS version 15 was utilized for the analysis of data. For categorical variables, a series of binary logistic regression analyses were utilized, while for interval level measures, repeated measures ANOVAs were employed.

Results: The time by attitudes towards school interactions were significant for victimization, per pressure toward alcohol use, and teacher social support (all p's < .05). Across time, students with negative attitudes towards school tended to show increases in victimization and peer pressure for use of alcohol, with decreases in teacher social support. In contrast, those with neutral or positive attitudes towards school tended to show decreases in victimization and peer pressure for alcohol use, with increases in teacher support across time. In addition, results indicated that relative to the students with positive or neutral attitudes towards school, the students with negative attitudes showed higher levels of depression, overt and covert aggressive behavior, and lower self-esteem, levels of coping skills, and poorer grades (all p's < .05).

Conclusions and Implications: Negative attitudes towards school showed similar relationships for COAs as found in the literature for other groups. The implications are that attitudes towards school are important predictors for problem behaviors, regardless of other child characteristics. As such, when designing school based prevention programs, it is important that this issue be addressed. Positive and neutral attitudes towards school appear to serve as protective factors for children and adolescents. Further research is necessary to delineate how prevention programs might successfully address this issue through screening and intervention.