Gendered Patterns of Drug Use on a University Campus in the United States

• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Author: William De Soto,Hassan Tajalli
• Date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.332

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doi: 10.1002/wmh3.332

© 2020 Policy Studies Organization

Gendered Patterns of Drug Use on a University Campus

in the United States

William De Soto and Hassan Tajalli

Substance use patterns are important to understand because they can have a variety of effects on those

who engage in them. Some of these consequences can be harmful. This is especially true for young

adults in college settings who are making the transition to adulthood. While the issue of substance use

looms large in the research literature on college students, less attention had been focused exclusively

on women in this important setting. This paper attempts to address this limitation in existing research

by assessing the utility of two theories of human behavior for explaining substance use among female

college students (i)Social Learning Theory and (ii)General Strain Theory. There does appear to be

support for learning theory but not for strain theory.

KEY WORDS: drug use, strain theory, social learning theory and gender

Introduction

The paper examines the utility of two theories of human behavior in accounting

for variations in substance use patterns among women in a college setting. These

two theories are social learning and general strain; both have been found useful for

analyzing substance use patterns. While Akins, Smith, and Mosher (2010)focus

upon an adult population, their research identified pathways to alcohol abuse by

demonstrating the role that both strain and learning theory play in accounting for

this behavior across divergent racial subgroups. Other research has found that

students’motivations can affect the applicability of these two theories as ex-

planations for substance use (Pino, Tajalli, Smith, & De Soto, 2017). Before

discussing these theories, the paper explores some of the relevant literature that

addresses three specific topics: (i)substance use among college students, (ii)gender

differences in substance use among college students, and (iii)tests of General Strain

Theory (GST)and Social Learning Theory (SLT)as explanations for substance use in

this population. The paper then reviews the research strategy, the findings, the

limitations, and the implications of this paper.

As some forms of substance use can be harmful for college students, im-

proving our understanding of this phenomenon is important. Drug use of various

types among college students is associated with adverse academic and health

effects. Unfortunately, as Arria et al. (2017)note, more scholarly attention has

been focused on alcohol than on other types of drugs. It would be beneficial for