CULTURAL ORIENTATION AND ALCOHOL-TYPE PREFERENCES AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN 4 SOCIOCULTURAL SUBGROUPS IN ZIMBABWE

A classroom survey among 3,061 secondary school students in four diffe rent sociocultural subgroups was conducted in 2imbabwe. Structural equ ation modelling was applied to explore the relationship among sociodem ographic variables, school children's cultural orientation, and alcoho l-type preferences. A model with local and global orientation as media tors explained 17% of the variance in reported use of imported alcohol types and 2.4% of the variance in use of traditional alcohol types. G lobal cultural orientation was positively associated with reported exp erimenting with, and use of, both imported and traditional alcohol typ es, whereas local orientation was negatively associated with use of im ported alcohol types and positively associated with use of traditional alcohol types.