An investigation has been made of the catalytic properties of oxide zinc-chromium, zinc-chromium-iron and vanadium-magnesium catalysts in the dehydrogenation and oxidative dehydrogenation of ethyltoluene of different isomeric composition. The influence of the reaction conditions on the vinyltoluene yield and the selectivity of conversion of the initial methylethylbenzenes into the target product has been examined. The high effectiveness of an oxide zinc-chromium-iron catalyst in the synthesis of p-vinyltoluene by the dehydrogenation of p-ethyltoluene has been shown (the monomer yield reaches 68% with a selectivity of 90%). It has been established that the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethyltoluene on a vanadium-magnesium catalyst with the use of air oxygen as the hydrogen acceptor does not ensure high vinyltoluene yields.