COUV ACTES - Psychologie communautaire

Community Psychology: Common Values, Diverse PracticesMethodsParticipantsData were provided by a sample of 2533 adolescents attending high schools in Italy. Adolescent participantswere from the first to the last year of the Italian high school system. The average age was 17.26 years (SD=1.63).The sample was 66.7% male and 33.3% female.As regards country of origin, 2.3% students of the sample did not indicate where they were born, 13.1% studentsdid not indicate where their mother was born (95.7% of these students were born in Italy), 13.7% students did notindicate where their father was born (94.9% of these students were born in Italy). As regards family composition,1.4% students reported they do not have a mother or they never see her and 4.0% students reported they do nothave a father or they never see him. Those pupils were excluded from the study analysis. In the sample used forthe present study (N=2034), there were 9.1% immigrants (N=186; foreign born with at least one foreign bornparent).MeasuresNative or immigrant status was based on the country where the adolescent and his/her parents were born. Basedon these items we created two groups: Italian adolescents (born in Italy from both Italian native parents) andimmigrant adolescents (foreign born from at least one foreign born parent). To measure SES we used: familyaffluence and parental educational level. Family Affluence was measured by the Family Affluence Scale (FAS;Currie, Elton, Todd, & Platt, 1997). Parental educational level was measured both for mothers and fathers.Marijuana use was measured as follows “Have you ever taken marijuana in your life?”. Responses were from 1(“Never”) to 7 (“40 times or more”). We used a dichotomous measures: 1 (at least one time) and 0 (never).Other illicit drug use was measured using 9 items asking “Have you ever taken some of the following drugs inyour life?”, referring for example to “Ecstasy”, “Amphetamine”, “Opium” etc. Responses were from 1 (“Never”) to 7(“40 times or more”). We summed the nine items to obtain a unique variable about illicit drug use and we recodedthis variable as a dichotomous measures: 1 (at least one time for at least one drug) and 0 (never).ResultsWith regard to SES, results showed that immigrant adolescents’ families are characterized by lower familyaffluence (F (1, 2011)= 31.44; p