Perspectives on Drugs

Social Stigmas in Drug Education

My research question is, "To what extent do social stigmas perpetuated through Washington State high school drug education programs affect students comprehension and long term decision making in regards to drug use?"

Problem Statement

There is a problem in or with drug education policies in Washington state high schools. Despite increasing awareness of the effects of drug addiction, high school students continue to experiment with drugs.

This problem has negatively affected students by failing to prevent them from engaging in risky behaviors like drug use. A possible cause for this problem is the lacking understanding of how social stigmas surrounding drug use interfere with student comprehension and development of personal beliefs.

A mixed method research study which investigates the social stigmas in drug education classes in Washington State high schools could help remedy this situation.

Significance and Value of Study

This research could help make drug education programs more effective at teaching kids about drugs, and it could change the way people think about drug use, make decisions about them, and reduce stigmatization.

My hope is that the results I collect will show a common trend in the way that students perceive drug use.

Researcher

Serena Beltramo

Class of 2019

Initial Assumptions and Hypothesis

In the beginning I hypothesized that students would know less about drugs like LSD and Adderall because I assumed that these drugs would be talked about less than drugs like marijuana and nicotine that are frequent pop culture topics.

Conclusion

My hypothesis was proven to be true and I therefore accepted my hypothesis, as I found that people remembered LSD and Adderall less frequently than they remembered being taught about nicotine and marijuana.

Proposed Method of Study

I am going to do a research study where I collect information from a survey about student and staff perspectives on drugs. I want to change that data into percentages so I can look at the overall amount of people who feel a certain way about drug use.

I ended up using a convergent design mixed method study, my survey focused on collecting quantitative data about student perspectives on drugs and their experiences, which was collected solely for the purpose of being turned into percentages. There was also room for qualitative responses as I allowed an "other, please specify" option in order to allow people to communicate their perspectives without constraint.

Definitions and Variables

A social stigma is a negative belief caused by a perceived social difference. In this instance it is being applied to perceptions on drug abuse.

For the purpose of this study I am defining drug education as any time that a student was talked to about drugs or drug abuse that they felt was significant enough to report as educational, for example parental education, personal studying etc.

Implications

This study showed that the current drug education curriculum for the state of Washington does not specifically recommend addressing drugs, social stigmas around drugs, or misconceptions, and the study also showed that students had low comprehension rates in regards to drugs. The curriculum also heavily relied on stigmatized learning, in that it promoted primarily teaching students about negative health consequences, criminal and legal consequences, and asked them to make goals for a life without drugs in order to understand how using drugs can affect their lives.

More research would need to be conducted to definitively conclude that social stigmas are being perpetuated in drug education programs by failure to address them directly, and by promoting learning that focuses mostly on areas that already carry a stigma, like criminal consequences.

The implications of this study is that social stigmas may be impacting the way that students comprehend drugs, and that the curriculum may be more effective if revised to be more encompassing and left to less interpretation.

Results and Findings

Marijuana

100% believe it is commonly used in high school

94% remember being taught about it in drug education

Nicotine

100% believe it is commonly used in high school

64% remember being taught about it in drug education

Adderall

76% believe it is commonly used in high school

17% remember being taught about it in drug education

LSD

17% believe it is commonly used in high school

47% remember being taught about it in drug education

Cocaine

35% believe it is commonly used in high school

76% remember being taught about it in drug education

Please see the chart and graph below for additional research findings.

Next Steps

In the future, a larger sample size would need to be used in order to be representative of the state.

Additionally, the survey could use multiple age groups in order to analyze whether or not the comprehension rates have changed over the years as the curriculum has changed in order to further analyze the effect of social stigmas and curriculum on the comprehension and decision making of students.

Key Sources

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (October 18, 2018). Washington State K-12 Learning Standards. Retrieved from http://www.k12.wa.us/CurriculumInstruct/learningstandards.aspx

Pisani, Elizabeth. (February 2010). Sex, Drugs and HIV-- Lets Get Rational [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_let_s_get_rational_1

Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (2017, June). Prevention Tools What Works, What Doesn’t. Retrieved from https://www.dshs.wa.gov/sites/default/files/SESA/publications/documents/22-1662.pdf

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