Drug and Alcohol Findings have a review of normative educational approaches. It concludes:
School drug prevention programmes should incorporate teaching which corrects inaccurate beliefs about the normality and acceptability of drug use. If lesson time is limited, using it in this way would normally be more effective than teaching refusal skills. Normative beliefs are most relevant when the forms of drug use in question really are uncommon and not widely accepted among targeted pupils, but might be thought to be more common. Though experimentation with some drugs is practically normative among young people, regular use remains very far from normal. Stressing this message may be an effective antidote to overindulgence but may also be seen as condoning experimentation.
The findings raise the issue of targeting drug education (especially harm reduction education) at groups likely to benefit most, in this case identified by early unsupervised drinking. Targeting might make the best use of teaching time, but risks stigmatisation.
This seems to me to be a very positive set of findings, without going overboard about what can be achieved with drug education. It will be interesting to see whether any of these findings are mirrored in the Blueprint research when that’s published next year.
Filed under: drug education , Drug and Alcohol Findings, normative drug education
