Are Homeschooled Adolescents Less Likely to Use Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs?

Background/Purpose: Nearly two million school-aged children in the U.S. are currently homeschooled. While this trend has been steadily increasing over the past few decades, homeschooling continues to be a contentious topic driven by ideological differences rather than rigorous research. Research has found homeschooled adolescents to have similar social skills and extracurricular participation as non-homeschooled adolescents; however, the broad array of social and behavioral outcomes associated with homeschooling is an understudied topic. This study seeks to examine homeschooled adolescents’ attitudes toward, access to, and use of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs (ATOD) compared to their non-homeschooled peers.

Methods: The study uses data between 2002 and 2013 from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which provides population estimates of substance use and health-related behaviors in the U.S. general population. The current study restricted analyses to respondents between the ages of 12 and 17 (n = 216,852). Respondents were classified as homeschooled (0 = no, 1 = yes) if they reported that they had been homeschooled at any point in the past 12 months. Response variables included views on peers using licit and illicit substances (0 = “neither approve nor disapprove” or “somewhat disapprove”; 1 = strongly disagree), ease of accessing illicit substances (0=“fairly difficult”, “very difficult”, or “impossible”; 1=”fairly easy” or “very easy), was approached to purchase illegal drugs in the past 30 days (0 = no; 1= yes), and past 12 month use of a variety of substances (0 = no; 1= yes). Survey adjusted binary logistic regression analyses were systematically executed to compare non-homeschooled adolescents with homeschooled adolescents with respect to views and access to illicit substances and past 12 month substance use and substance use disorders.

Results: Findings indicate that there are indeed differences between homeschooled and non-homeschooled students with regards to views toward, access to, and use of substances. In particular, homeschooled adolescents were more likely to strongly disapprove of their peers drinking alcohol (AOR = 1.23) and trying (AOR = 1.47) and routinely using (AOR = 1.59) marijuana. Homeschooled adolescents were also less likely to report easier access to marijuana (AOR = 0.38), cocaine (AOR = 0.81), and crack (AOR = 0.76) and less likely to be approached by someone trying to sell drugs (AOR = 0.43) compared to non-homeschooled peers. Moreover, homeschooled adolescents were less likely to report using tobacco (AOR = 0.76), alcohol (AOR = 0.50), cannabis (AOR = 0.56), ecstasy (AOR = 0.41), and hallucinogens (AOR = 0.61) as well as less likely to report alcohol (AOR = 0.65) or marijuana (AOR = 0.60) abuse/dependence than non-homeschooled adolescents.

Conclusions and Implications: This study provides evidence that homeschooled adolescents’ views, access, use and abuse of ATOD are uniquely different from those of non-homeschooled adolescents. While causal relationships cannot be established, the significant differences between homeschooled versus non-homeschooled adolescents in regards to substance use is important and points to the need to more extensively examine the underlying mechanisms that may account for these differences.