Nonritual alcohol drinking practices among high school students from the Kibbutz movement in Israel: implications for...

This article describes the Kibbutzim part of a survey conducted in the north of Israel during spring 1990, in order to investigate alcohol drinking habits of Jewish students from Kibbutzim and urban areas, as well as those of Moslem and Druze students, and to draw conclusions for designing alcohol abuse prevention activities. Of the general sample of 2763 students, 572 subjects were drawn from eleven schools which belong to sixty-two Kibbutzim. Exactly 435 students were Kibbutzim-born and 137 were outsiders living and being educated in the Kibbutzim. Kibbutzim-born youth showed the highest rate of involvement with alcohol in Israel, and a striking difference concerning the rates of alcohol consumption was revealed between the above mentioned two groups. This article explains this gap, as well as the high prevalence of alcohol use among Kibbutzim-born youth, and discusses implications for prevention.