Denise B. Kandel

Homophily, Selection, and Socialization in Adolescent Friendships.

Longitudinal sociometric data on adolescent friendship pairs, friends-to-be, and former friends are examined to assess levels of homophily on four attributes (frequency of current marijuana, use, level of educational aspirations, political orientation, and participation in minor delinquency) at various stages of friendship formation and dissolution. In addition, estimates are developed of the extent to which observed homophily in friendship dyads results from a process of selection (assortative pairing), in which similarity precedes association and the extent to which it results from a process of socialization in which association leads to similarity. The implications of the results for interpreting estimates of peer influence derived from cross-sectional data are discussed.

Stages in adolescent involvement in drug use

Two longitudinal surveys based on random samples of high school students in New York State indicate four stages in the sequence of involvement with drugs: beer or wine, or both; cigarettes or hard liquor; marihuana; and other illicit drugs. The legal drugs are necessary intermediates between nonuse and marihuana. Whereas 27 percent of high school students who smoke and drink progress to marihuana within a 5- to 6-month follow-up period, only 2 percent of those who have not used any legal substance do so. Marihuana, in turn, is a crucial step on the way to other illicit drugs. While 26 percent of marihuana users progress to LSD, amphetamines, or heroin, only 1 percent of nondrug marihuana users and 4 percent of legal drug users do so. This sequence is found in each of the 4 years in high school and in the year after graduation. The reverse sequence holds for regression in drug use.

Adolescent Marihuana Use: Role of Parents and Peers

In order to examine the relative influence of parents and peers on marihuana use among adolescents, independent data have been obtained from adolescents, their parents, and their best school friends in a sample of secondary school students in New York State. The data indicate that drug use by peers exerts a greater influence than drug use by parents. Friends are more similar in their use of marihuana than in any other activity or attitude. Parental use of psychotropic drugs has only a small influence, mostly related to maternal use. Peer and parental influences are synergistic; the highest rates of marihuana usage are observed among adolescents whose parents and friends are drug users.

The epidemiology of adolescent drug use in France and Israel.

Based on samples of adolescents residing in urban areas in France and in Israel, cross-cultural comparisons of adolescent use of alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, and illicit drugs are reported. Lifetime and current prevalences of use of all substances are higher in France than in Israel. The relative ranking of the prevalence of use of the various drugs is identical in the two countries, and is similar to that found in American samples. In both countries, drug use is more prevalent among males than females, and among older than younger adolescents. There are no differences among different socioeconomic groups. Religiosity affects the rates of use of all drugs in France, and the rates of non-alcoholic substances and the amounts of alcoholic beverages consumed in Israel. Differences in the prevalence of substance use across cultures and within a culture decrease as overall prevalence of use increases.

Status Homophily, Social Context, and Participation in Psychotherapy

The concept of status homophily was extended to the physician-patient interaction in psychotherapy. Participation of patients in pyschotherapy in a mental hospital was examined as a function of social statuses of both the physicians and the patients. Social class but no religious status homophily played a role in determining the type of patient carried in psychotherapy by different therapists. The social characteristics of the hospital service in which the physician-patient pair was located could either accentuate or attenuate the process of status homophily in the psychiatrist-patient interaction.

Marital Decision-Making in American and Danish Urban Families: A Research Note.

Blood and Wolfes theory of resources in marital decision-making was tested in a survey of American and Danish urban families. In both countries, marital power was neither consistently nor always positively correlated with the resources (family income or occupation) brought into the marriage by each spouse. However, wifes employment, whether part-time or fulltime, contributed to her increased power within the household. The importance of socioeconomic resources for marital decisionmaking may not derive primarily from the availability of financial and status rewards as much as from the opportunities for gaining experience in interpersonal and decision-making skills outside the family which an individual can then utilize within the family.

Race, Maternal Authority, and Adolescent Aspiration'

The present paper tests the prevalent hypotheses that the matriarchal character of black families is associated principally with father absence from the home and that a matriarchal family structure has detrimental educational consequences for black males. Within the limitations imposed by the samples, the results lead to the tentative rejection of these hypotheses. Among blacks, the authority of mothers tends to be stronger in intact than in broken families. Furthermore, maternal authority in the household hand identification with a female role model do not appear to have the negative consequences on educational aspirations and school performance for black adolescent boys which have been attributed to them. Black mothers and their children have the same or higher educational aspirations than white regardless of the fact that the black adolescents tend to identify more closely with their mothers. The lower educational attainment of blacks must be sought in other factors within and outside the family which make it difficult for black adolescents to translate educational aspirations into educational achievement.