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ABSTRACT the Effects of Homeschooling on Participation in Drinking Alcohol Among Adolescents and Emerging Adults Robert A ABSTRACT The Effects of Homeschooling on Participation in Drinking Alcohol among Adolescents and Emerging Adults Robert A. Thomson, Jr., M.A. Thesis Chairperson: Sung Joon Jang, Ph.D. Parents often choose to homeschool their children for reasons that, if their goals are accomplished, should contribute to relatively low levels of substance use among their children. Specifically, many parents desire to foster family- and religiously-centered values, while they are also concerned about the potential of negative peer pressure in public schools. In this paper, I use data from three waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) to study the relationship between homeschooling and alcohol use. As hypothesized, I find that homeschool students do tend to drink less than public and private school students. Religiosity was found to be the strongest explanation of the observed group difference in cross-sectional analyses, while prior drinking was the dominant predictor in longitudinal analyses. In addition, concepts related to social bonding theory partially explain group differences, whereas those related to social learning and general strain tended to suppress them. Copyright © 2013 by Robert A. Thomson, Jr. All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS I. List of Figures v II. List of Tables vi III. Acknowledgments viii III. Chapter One: Introduction 1 IV. Chapter Two: Literature Review 3 Homeschooling and Delinquency The Modern Rise of American Homeschooling Homeschooling, Parents/Family, and Conventional Adults Homeschooling and Friendship Networks Religion and Homeschooling Hypotheses V. Chapter Three: Data and Methods 17 Dependent Variables Secondary School History Independent Variables Moderating Variables Controls Analytical Strategy VI. Chapter Four: Results 28 VII. Chapter Five: Discussion 48 VIII. Chapter Six: Conclusion 53 IX. Appendix A 59 X. Appendix B 62 XI. Bibliography 77 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Predicted Probability of Drinking at Time 3 (Cross-Sectional) 33 Figure B.1: Predicted Probability of Drinking at Time 3 (3-Wave Longitudinal) 64 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Descriptive Statistics by Wave: NSYR 38 Table 2: Group Means of Dependent Variables and Covariates 39 Table 3: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Drinking at Time 1 41 Table 4: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Drinking at Time 2 43 Table 5: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Drinking at Time 3 44 Table 6: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Drinking at Time 2 (2-Wave Longitudinal) 45 Table 7: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Drinking at Time 3 (2-Wave Longitudinal) 46 Table B.1: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Drinking at Time 3 (3-Wave Longitudinal) 63 Table B.2: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Getting Drunk at Time 1 65 Table B.3: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Getting Drunk at Time 2 66 Table B.4: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Getting Drunk at Time 3 67 Table B.5: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Getting Drunk at Time 2 (2- Wave Longitudinal) 68 Table B.6: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Getting Drunk at Time 3 (2- Wave Longitudinal) 69 Table B.7: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Getting Drunk at Time 3 (3- Wave Longitudinal) 71 Table B.8: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for DUI at Time 2 72 Table B.9: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for DUI at Time 2 (2-Wave Longitudinal) 73 Table B.10: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Binge Drinking at Time 3 74 vi Table B.11: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Binge Drinking at Time 3 (2- Wave Longitudinal) 75 Table B.12: Binary Logistic Regression Odds Ratios for Binge Drinking at Time 3 (3- Wave Longitudinal) 76 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my thesis chairperson, Dr. Sung Joon Jang, for his tireless and patient mentorship throughout the process. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Paul Froese and Dr. Jon Singletary for their assistance and service. viii CHAPTER ONE Introduction The family and school are widely recognized as critical arenas of socialization in criminological theory, due to their importance in the development of both social capital and cultural resources in individuals (Agnew, 2006; Akers, 2009; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Hirschi, 1969). The practice of homeschooling, a social structure that intersects family and education, thus raises interesting questions to both sociology and criminology. Are parents who homeschool in order to instill family and religious values successful in doing so? Are teens who have been homeschooled less likely to offend? To be sure, some parents might be motivated to homeschool by a desire to provide a superior education through individualized attention that can result in better economic opportunities for their children, but many others are motivated by deep convictions regarding the preeminence of family and religion over secularized societal institutions (c.f. Cizek, 1994; Collom, 2005; Jeub, 1994; Lines, 1994; Murphy, 2012). While the homeschooling movement is relatively small, currently representing less than four percent of school-aged children in the United States, it has gained legal and popular legitimacy over the last few decades. Despite a growth rate that “has been nothing short of remarkable” since the 1970’s (Murphy, 2012, p. 10), however, research on homeschooling has been limited not only in number but also in scope as it has focused on pro-social outcomes, such as academic achievement and socialization of homeschoolers (see Cizek, 1994; e.g., Cordner, 2012; Ray, 2004; Uecker, 2008). Among 1 many gaps that remain (see Murphy, 2012, pp. 125–126), grossly lacking is criminological research on delinquency and substance use among homeschool students. The present study intends to fill this gap in research and thus contribute not only to the homeschooling but also criminological literatures. Specifically, I hypothesize that adolescents and emerging adults who have been homeschooled will participate in drinking alcohol less than those who attended public and private (religious or otherwise) high schools, and that the negative association between homeschooling and substance use is explained by variables related to social control, social learning, and general strain, as well as independent effects related to religion. Furthermore, I predict interaction effects between homeschooling and both parent and teen religiosity, such that participation in drinking alcohol declines more with increasing religiosity among homeschooled teens than non-homeschooled teens. These hypotheses will be tested using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), a nationally representative three-wave panel study conducted from 2002 to 2008 that included both parent (wave 1 only) and teen questionnaires. 2 CHAPTER TWO Literature Review Homeschooling and Delinquency When a family decides to homeschool rather than send their children to public or private school, they fundamentally alter the structure in which the children relate not only to their parents (and potentially other adults) but also their peers. Homeschooling thus has potential implications for three micro-level criminological theories: (1) social control theory, which posits that individuals are restrained from crime and delinquency by virtue of their attachment to conventional others, commitment to conventional goals, involvement in conventional activities, and pro-social beliefs (Hirschi, 1969); (2) social learning theory, which proposes that criminal behavior is both learned by imitating or associating with deviant others and conditioned through reward/punishment schedules (Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979; Akers, 1985, 2009; Sutherland & Cressey, 1970); and (3) general strain theory, which conceptualizes crime as an illegal behavioral or emotional coping response to negative emotions caused either by the experience of negatively-valued stimuli or by the loss of positively-valued stimuli (Agnew, 1992, 2006). It should be noted from the onset that while each of these distinct theories are expected to have some application to the homeschooling movement, the present work does not represent a theoretical integration, in that no attempt to reconcile the logical incompatibility of underlying assumptions regarding motivations and human proclivity toward criminal behavior will be made (see Thornberry, 1989). 3 As will be discussed below, religion has not only played a prominent role in the historical emergence of homeschooling, but it also serves as an important motivation for homeschooling today. Therefore, the impact of religion on criminality is also relevant to the homeschooling movement. Of course, the effect of religion on crime has been a matter of debate since Hirschi and Stark’s (1969) report that, while both moral values and attitudes regarding the law were highly predictive of delinquency, church attendance was not a strong predictor of either, at least not among their sample of students from Western Contra Costa County, California. These findings have since stirred debate both about research methodology (e.g.,Higgins & Albrecht, 1977; Johnson, Jang, Larson, & De Li, 2001) as well as theoretical framing. As an example of the latter, Stark (1996) himself eventually developed a “moral communities” thesis, later elaborated by Regnerus (2003), which understands the effects of religion in social, rather than purely individual, terms. The deterrent effects of religiosity, he explains, needs to be activated by social
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