Exploring School Connectedness and Educational Aspirations As Mediators of Private Versus Public School Attendance and Alcohol Use Among Uruguayan Adolescents

Background and purpose: In Uruguay, alcohol use is endemic among adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 (past year use: ~ 60%, past month use: ~ 40%).  Differences in rates of alcohol use exist among adolescents according to school type.  Students who attend privately managed, free-access schools serving youth from low SES households have lower rates of alcohol use compared to students enrolled in public schools in the same communities.  Drawing from ecodevelopmental theory, this study seeks to explore the factors that underlie differences in alcohol use, using school connectedness and educational aspirations as explanatory variables. 

Methods: This study uses longitudinal data (N = 353) from a pilot study of an adolescent substance use prevention intervention in Uruguay.  Participants (M_age= 12.7 SD = .84, Female = 50.1%) come from four schools- two private and two public with one from each serving as a control and the other as the experimental condition.  Schools are located in the poorest zone in Montevideo, in a neighborhood stricken by a number of risk factors associated with adolescent substance use.   

Using a mediation path analytic model in Mplus, Wave 1 school connectedness and educational aspirations were tested as possible explanatory mechanisms linking school type (i.e., private v. public) with Wave 2 alcohol use indicators (30-day frequency and 30-day binge drinking), controlling for treatment condition, age, and gender. 

Results: The chi-square significance test was nonsignificant, χ²(4) = 4.0, p = .41; the CFI (1.0), RMSEA (.00, CI_90% = .00-08), and SRMR (.02) also indicated good global model fit.  Relative to public school students, private school students had higher educational aspirations (β = .15, p < .01) and greater school connectedness (β = .33, p < .001).  In turn, school connectedness (β = -.15, p < .05) was associated with a lower frequency of 30-day alcohol use and less binge drinking in the past month characterized by > 5 drinks (β = -.17, p < .01).  The relationship between educational aspirations and alcohol frequency and binge drinking was statistically nonsignificant.  Indirect effects revealed that private school attendance was related to less frequency of alcohol use (β = -.05, p < .05) and less binge drinking (β = -.06, p < .05) through school connectedness.  Additional analyses will explore the possibility that school connectedness and educational aspirations are differentially related to alcohol use according to school type. 

Conclusions and implications: School-level policy and practice implications to increase connectedness among students are discussed.  The promotion of school connectedness among Uruguayan youth is critical to reducing the high rate of alcohol use.  Further, prior research has shown this factor to promote student retention, which is also protective against substance use and relevant to the Uruguayan context as roughly 1 in 4 adolescents between the ages of 15 and 17 are not in school.