“Alcohol and Drunkenness”—A Newly Developed Curricular Unit as a Model for Drug-Education, Science Oriented Curricular Programs

Abstract

Alcohol and Drunkenness is a newly developed science-oriented curriculum which constitutes an innovative attempt at coping with the problem of excessive drinking among high school students. It is a field-tested, practical and manageable model of a program aimed at influencing attitudes of Israeli teenagers toward excessive drinking and to affect their behavior accordingly. This preventive program in drug-education was developed at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, with the need for an appropriate preventive educational program in mind to be implemented and disseminated within the upper level of the Israeli school system. The preventive model of the curriculum is the so-called “social science model.” The program deals with primary prevention, is related to direct prevention, integrates the cognitive and the affective domains, fosters the decision-making component, emphasizes Jewish values and norms concerning alcohol consumption, and is interdisciplinary in approach. The program, which constitutes the first attempt of its kind in Israel to cope within the Israeli school system with excessive drinking, and the first attempt to battle excessive drinking in the framework of science education, can represent a curriculum model for future preventive programs within the realm of science education, as well as a curriculum model for interdisciplinary studies. Based on the results of a field test it is safe to conclude that the curriculum may be considered as a viable procedure in the prevention of excessive drinking among youngsters.