European Journal of Educational and Development Psychology Vol.10, No.3, pp.70-81, 2022 Print ISSN: 2055-0170(Print), Online ISSN: 2055-0189(Online) 70 @ECRTD-UK: https://www.eajournals.org/ Publication of the European Centre for Research Training and Development-UK Authoritarian and Authoritative Parenting Styles as Correlates of Students’ Tendency to Abuse Drugs in Rivers State, Southern Nigeria Amadi, Uchechukwu Dept. of Educational Psychology, Guidance and Counselling, University of Port Harcourt, Southern Nigeria Dr Chujor, J. Chujor Dept. of Educational Psychology, Guidance and Counselling, University of Port Harcourt, Southern Nigeria Citation: Amadi U. and Chujor J. C. (2022) Authoritarian and Authoritative Parenting Styles as Correlates of Students’ Tendency to Abuse Drugs in Rivers State, Southern Nigeria, European Journal of Educational and Development Psychology, Vol.10, No.3, pp.70-81, ABSTRACT: The study investigated Authoritarian and Authoritative parenting styles and as correlates of student’s abuse of drugs in Rivers State, Nigeria. Three research questions and three corresponding null-hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted correlational design. A sample size of 400 SS I and SS II students drawn from the population of 22,413 secondary school students through simple and non-proportionate stratified random sampling techniques were used for the study. Two instruments used in the study were Parenting Style Scale (PSS) and Abuse of Drugs Inventory (ADI). The instruments were validated by three experts in Educational Measurement and Evaluation. The reliabilities of the instruments were determined using Cronbach Alpha techniques. The reliability coefficients obtained were 0.81, 0.77, 0.84 and 0.73 for Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive and Uninvolved Parenting Styles respectively and Abuse of Drugs inventory had a reliability coefficient of 0.79. Multiple Regression and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used in data analysis. The results revealed that Authoritarian and Authoritative Parenting Styles do not significantly correlate with students abuse of drugs. The conclusion drawn from this study is that parenting style had a significant joint contribution in determining the outcome of children’s abuse of drugs, while some parenting styles (e.g. authoritative and authoritarian) are negatively associated with abuse of drugs. Based on the results, recommendations were made, one of which was that parents should adopt authoritative parenting style in rearing their children as this has been shown to minimize the tendency of them to be involved in abuse of drugs. KEY WORDS: Parenting style, authoritarian, authoritative, drug abuse, adolescents. INTRODUCTION A major public health challenge facing not only African nations but the entire globe today, especially among youths is drug abuse. From the estimate of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) world drug report of 2019, 271 million, which is the same as 5.5 percent of the world population that fall within the age range of 15 – 64 years had used drugs during the previous