Truancy is detrimental to children's educational progress. Parents, being the first authority at home, share an equal responsibility with schools to thwart it. Unlike developed countries, many nations, e.g. India, have no legal actions or policies for truancy. A considerable gap in identifying any specific form of involvement from the parents…

In the United States truancy prevention is lacking two key elements to success; research that explains the causes of truancy and empirical evidence for best practices of truancy prevention. Truancy has been a problem in academics since the early 1900's, when truancy became illegal. Since then, truancy rates have continued to see a steady increase,…

In this ethnographic study, I present a single school's practice of registering and analysing absence from school. I show that teachers use various "dirty," interpretational contexts for understanding absence and make it classifiable in "clean" attendance categories -- a move that decontextualises the meaning of absence. When…

Extended school non-attendance, commonly named truancy or school refusal, has over the last decade attracted attention among educational researchers. This article points to a need for theoretical perspectives that can account for the complexity and ambiguity of the phenomenon. The article presents a critical analysis of the research field of…

Prior research demonstrates the importance of school climate in shaping student behavior but tells us less about which aspects of school climate matter. In this paper we consider how distinct elements of school climate relate to skipping school and cheating on tests. Using survey and administrative data from several statewide Delaware sources, we…

This study examined the extent to which residential mobility in the first 15 years of life was cumulatively associated with high school truancy at age 15 and whether there were specific developmental periods during which residential mobility was more consequential. To address these aims, we used data drawn from 4,848 children and families who…

Student absenteeism is a persistent concern in K-12 education. Not only are the negative academic and social consequences of excessive absenteeism well documented, but states, districts, and schools are increasingly being held accountable for student attendance. As research indicates that disruptions in students' learning contexts may exacerbate…

Objective: The original 24-item School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised (SRAS-R) assesses four functions/conditions regarding school refusal behavior (SRB), bridging assessments, and treatments of SRB. No validated Chinese versions are available. Methods: To validate the Chinese version of the SRAS-R, an anonymous cross-sectional survey was…

Andrew Monroe [pseud.] (b. 1894) was a Colorado street kid whose acts of truancy and theft landed him before the state's early juvenile courts, and his youth was marked by attempts at escape from reform school. His childhood and youth provide insights into the mechanics of how systems of juvenile corrections operated in the early twentieth…

This doctoral study collected and analyzed the narratives of four adult professionals who work to reduce truancy in school-age children grades K-12. Truancy is a complex issue that has far-reaching consequences for all stakeholders from the single student up through the collective society at large. While truancy studies can be found in the…

The authors report on a youth agency study conducted in post-conflict school settings in Sri Lanka. In a three-month field-based, qualitative research study, youth collaborated with the first author to explain and expand on their interviews. Their candor and concern for ensuring that the researcher understood the rationales behind their actions…

Many problems that we conceptualize as "educational" have multiple causes that cut across students' ecosystems. Yet, most education reforms are targeted narrowly at schools, educators, and students. Supporting educators and community leaders in conceptualizing educational problems from an ecological perspective and designing policies in…

Chronic absenteeism from school is a serious and common problem. Students miss school for many reasons, and the combination of factors that lead to absences are unique for each student. The only way to stop chronic absenteeism is to address the underlying causes, such as school avoidance, health-related issues, parental issues, and homelessness.…

This dissertation aims to elucidate the complexities of chronic absenteeism in Head Start Programs post-COVID-19 to enhance early childhood education practices and policies. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the study investigates the causes of absenteeism by surveying and interviewing 50 participants from a Head Start Program in the New York…

Finding effective ways to improve school attendance is more important than ever given the dramatic increases in chronic absence nationwide and in California. This report presents a compelling case for using data about unexcused absences to advance a more preventive, problem-solving, and equitable response to poor attendance. When an absence is…