On Drinking Styles and Race: A Consideration of the Socio-Structural Determinants of Alcohol Use Behavior

Abstract

Often missing from the discourse on alcohol use is that “alcohol-related problems among college students” appears to be a euphemism for “white college men” in that students who experience alcohol-related problems disproportionately tend to be white men. An important aspect of promoting social and behavioral change is to understand race-related mechanisms that structure desire for students to engage in alcohol use. This article presents findings based on undergraduate students attending a Midwest university. The current study contributes to the theoretical literature on alcohol use and race. We use logistic regression models which suggest race and attitudes pertaining to race relations matter in predicting non-binge drinking and abstinence behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• African American, alcohol
• college students
• inequalities, race

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to thank the Faculty Research Committee of the University of Akron and the University of Akron Faculty Research Grant program for funding which made this study possible (FRG # 1667). We would also like to thank Jodi Ross and Virgil Russell for assistance with data collection and data entry. Versions of this paper were presented in 2008 at the North Central Sociological Association meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio and at the National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse meeting in Bethesda, Maryland.

Notes

∗No options below $12,000 were offered.

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01; ∗∗∗p < .001.

^a Sexual orientation, religion, and Greek membership were omitted in the analysis due to too few cases.

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01; ∗∗∗p < .001.

^a Question asked participants: Are your Non-European American University peers likely to be criticized for drinking 4 or more drinks in a row in one setting?.

∗p < .05, ∗∗p < .01, ∗∗∗p < .001.

^a Sexual orientation, religion, and Greek membership were omitted in the analysis due to too few cases.

Analysis of frequent or occasional binge drinkers versus non-binge drinkers or abstainers and occasional binge drinkers versus non-binge drinkers or abstainers were also conducted; however, there were no significant results relative to the race relation questions.

Information on sexual orientation, religion, and Greek membership were also collected but were left out of the regression models because there was not an appropriate distribution of responses.

Interactions between race and the six questions on race relations and alcohol were also tested using logistic regression to determine if there was also moderation. No interactions were found.