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Becoming a Smoker
Adapting Becker's model of deviance for adolescent smoking
Patrick Peretti-Watel
INSERM UMR379 (Health and Medical Research National Institute), Southeastern Health, Regional Observatory (ORS-PACA); French National Cancer Institute (INCA), France
François Beck
French Monitoring Centre for Drug and Drug Addiction (OFDT); Research Centre Drugs, Mental Health and Society (CESAMES), France
Stephane Legleye
French Monitoring Centre for Drug and Drug Addiction (OFDT), France
Jean-Paul Moatti
INSERM UMR379 (Health and Medical Research National Institute), Department of Economics of University Aix-Marseille II, France
Abstract
This study examines attitudes to smoking among adolescents. Data for the study is derived from a large quantitative French cross-sectional survey of school students.
Attitudes toward smoking were found to be associated with regularity and quantity of consumption, and the type of school attended. These associations are explained according to Becker's concept of a 'moral career', for attitudes differ among occasional, regular and heavy smokers.
The association with school type indicates advanced formal schooling enables students to offer sophisticated rationalisations for smoking, combining an acknowledgement of health-related risks of smoking, emphasis on personal benefits derived from smoking, and claims that smoking is a private matter.
Keywords
sociology, smoking, adolescence, deviance, moral career, France
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