Samenvatting

Alcohol use and adolescents: they are inevitably connected. At least, this was the case up until the early 2000s in the Netherlands. After a peak in the prevalence of alcohol use in 2003, the percentage of adolescents in the Netherlands who drank alcohol decreased enormously. This decline co-occurs with a dramatic shift in sociocultural norms on adolescent alcohol use among parents. Since the peak in 2003, a variety of national and local prevention and intervention programs have been implemented, aiming to stimulate parents to adopt stricter parenting practices related to the alcohol use of their child. In other Western countries, however, similar decreases in adolescent alcohol use have been observed. On the basis of recent societal developments, the authors describe potential explanations for the observed declines. Moreover, they discuss how youngsters actively create peer contexts in which behaviors like alcohol use take place.