Tobacco education has gained widespread popular and political support and Is incorporated into many public schools' curricula. However, evaluation studies indicate that such programs do not decrease adolescents' smoking rates because program content is often dissonant with adolescents' interpretations of smoking. This study uses social constructionism and content analysis to explore tobacco education literature used in an alternative high school for at-risk youths. Findings indicate that the content's construction of smoking and cessation is dissonant with adolescents' subcultural social contexts. Dissonance-generating elements include decontextualization of smoking; suggested alternatives that are Improbable in adolescents' social contexts; and image biases that reflect stereotypes of age, class, and gender. The conclusion suggests ways to eliminate context dissonance in order to increase adolescents' receptivity to intervention efforts.
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