Relationships of Teenage Smoking to Educational

This study analy:,s data for white high school seniors from the V?85 Monitoring the Future national survey. Students who had less educated parents or lower educational aspirations were more likely to have tried a cigarette, more likely to have adopted cigarette smoking, and less likely to have quit smoking. Students with less educated parents or lower educational aspirations also had more favorable attitudes toward smoking and reported greater acceptance of smoking by their friends. In addition, students with less educated parents or lower educational aspirations appeared to be more rejecting of adult authority and more predisposed to adopt adult behaviors, and these characteristics in turn were associated with smoking more. Multivariate analyses of these data together with evidence from previous prospective studies, support the hypothesis that favorable attitudes toward smoking, social acceptance of smoking, and a tendency to adopt adult behaviors contribute to the higher rates of smoking among students with less educated parents or lQwer educational aspirations.