Evaluation of a truancy court intervention in four middle schools

The effectiveness of a school‐based truancy court intervention in four middle schools in a mid‐sized school district was evaluated. Cumulative data from 185 youth attending a truancy court from 2004 through 2008 were included in the analyses. Results indicated a differential impact of the truancy court intervention depending on truancy severity at baseline. The intervention was most successful in increasing attendance for students with severe truancy, but had limited impact on students with moderate truancy, and no impact on mild truancy. The intervention did not result in improved school attachment or grade point averages, nor did it significantly reduce discipline offenses. Furthermore, the aftercare intervention, consisting of regular meetings with an authority figure (e.g., a juvenile officer), was only effective at maintaining truancy court attendance gains for students with severe truancy at baseline, although it was associated with a substantial decrease in discipline offenses for all groups. These results suggest that truancy courts similar to the one described here may have an impact on truancy for severely truant students, but may have a limited effect on students with mild or moderate truancy. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Academic self‐attributions for success and failure in mathematics and school refusal

The aim of this research is twofold: to analyze the mean differences scores in mathematic self‐attributions based on school refusal and to verify its predictive capability on high scores in school refusal. The Sydney Attribution Scale and the School Refusal Assessment Scale‐Revised were administered to 1078 Spanish students (50.8% boys) aged between 8 and 11 years (M = 9.63; SD = 1.12). School refusers based on negative affect or anxiety attributed their failures more to the lack of capacity and effort, whereas students searching for tangible reinforcements outside of the school were more likely to attribute their successes to capacity. In turn, academic attributions acted as both positive and negative predictors of high‐school refusal. Results are discussed considering more adaptive attributional styles.     

Mind the Gap: How Students Differentially Perceive Their School's Attendance Policies in Germany

Truant student behavior can be due to various reasons. Some of these reasons are located in schools. So far, little is known about how student perception of school rules is related to truancy. This study aims to identify types of school attendance policies and how these policies are associated with individual truancy. Self-reports from the German student sample of PISA 2012 (N = 5,001) were analyzed to evaluate truancy and student perception of school attendance policies. A linear regression model was specified to predict truancy. Two styles of school attendance policies as perceived by students could be distinguished: active and passive. Students who perceived their school's attendance policy to be active were truant less often than students who thought their school's attendance policy was passive.     

An approach to understanding school attendance difficulties: pupils' perceptions of parental behaviour in response to their requests to be absent from school

The UK government has encouraged schools and local authorities to promote school attendance because of its associations with academic attainment and antisocial behaviour. Legislation makes school attendance a parental responsibility. This small‐scale study collected data on parent–child interaction immediately prior to school absence to examine how such interaction influenced the development of attendance difficulties. Good and poor school attenders, of 12–13 years of age, were compared on quantifiable measures of their self‐reported requests to be absent from school, their perceived parents' responses, self‐reported whole‐day and lesson truancy, and expected parental reaction to truancy. School absence requests were significantly more frequent among the poor attenders, who gained more absence and whose parents were inconsistent in their responses to the requests. Education social work/welfare services and school pastoral staff need well‐formulated methods, backed by empirical research, if they are to work effectively with parents and young people and substantially raise their low attendance.     

Assessing Reasons for School Non-attendance

The aim of the present study is to assess reasons for school non-attendance including somatic symptoms, subjective health complaints, truancy, and school refusal and to investigate the relationship of these with gender, grade, and self-reported special educational needs. The study is based on a self-reported questionnaire distributed to students recruited from seven municipalities in Norway. The total sample included 5,465 students in the sixth to tenth grades. The measurement model yielded indices of good fit, and the four suggested dimensions of reasons for school non-attendance were supported. Subjective health complaints emerged as the most commonly reported reason for school non-attendance, whereas 6.2% of students reported that their non-attendance “quite often” was due to truancy- or school refusal-related reasons. There was a tendency for students who report special educational needs to report more truancy reasons and for females to report more school refusal reasons. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The relationship between anxiety‐stability,working memory and cognitive style

While prior research indicates that relationships exist between anxiety‐stability and working memory, and cognitive style and anxiety‐stability, they have not been considered together. The aim of this study was to consider how anxiety‐stability is related to working memory, gender and style in interaction. The sample consisted of 179 12–13‐year‐old Year 8 secondary comprehensive school pupils in the UK. Teachers rated the level of anxiety‐stability of pupils. Pupils completed an assessment of working memory efficiency, the information processing index (IPI). They also did the cognitive styles analysis to determine their positions on the two fundamental cognitive style dimensions, which were indicated by two ratios: the Wholist‐Analytic ratio and the Verbal‐Imagery ratio. Working memory capacity and cognitive style interacted in their relationship with anxiety‐stability, such that higher memory was associated with a greater increased stability for Wholist‐Verbalisers and Analytic‐Imagers than for Analytic‐Verbalisers and Wholist‐Imagers. The results were discussed in terms of the unitary versus complementary nature of style combinations.     

The Effect of Cognitive Style on the Preferred Format of Instructional Material

Abstract A total of 90 15‐16‐year‐old female pupils from a single‐sex secondary grammar school did the Cognitive Styles Analysis which assessed their position on the Wholist‐Analytic and Verbal‐Imagery learning style dimensions. They were asked to select their preferred format of a single‐sheet handout on study skills which was offered in three modes: Unstructured‐Verbal, Structured‐Verbal and Structured‐Pictorial. Each mode contained the same information and differed only in format. On the format preference, there was a significant effect of the Verbal‐Imagery dimension (p = 0.002), with the majority of Verbalisers choosing the Structured‐Verbal sheet and the Imagers opting for the Structured‐Pictorial version. There was a smaller effect on the Wholist‐Analytic dimension, where Wholist had a preference for the Structured‐Pictorial and the Analytics for the Structured‐Verbal version (p = 0.056). The findings were discussed in terms of their practical implications for a differentiated approach to instruction.     

Toward reduced bias and increased utility in the assessment of school refusal behavior: The case for diverse samples and evaluations of context

The current article reviews the literature on school refusal behavior. Definitional inconsistencies, the effects of biased assessment processes, and the consequences of the lack of ethnic, racial, and economic diversity in school refusal research samples are highlighted. An increase in the use of low‐income, ethnic minority, community samples in school refusal research is proposed in order to create a more representative and useful literature. Concerns regarding artificial and impractical divisions between the commonly used labels of school refusal and truancy are also discussed. Suggestions are proposed for a new pragmatic framework of school refusal assessment for research and clinical work that utilizes and enhances Kearney's functional approach. The framework has the potential to incorporate the influences of multiple cultural contexts in order to aid professionals from different disciplines in both prevention and early intervention for school refusal in low‐income, ethnic minority populations. Additional suggestions for future direction in school refusal research are also discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

School attendance in Hertfordshire

In November 1994, the Hertfordshire School Attendance Project, an initiative set up by the local authority's Education Welfare Service with the purpose of promoting regular school attendance, conducted a survey on school attendance in which 12 secondary schools participated. The survey was intended to establish how pupils responded to coming to school; to identify levels of truancy, including post‐registration truancy; to determine the reasons for such truancy; and to assist schools in developing appropriate and effective responses. The survey found that the overwhelming majority of pupils mostly liked school, attended regularly and were mostly happy with the curriculum which they were offered. The truancy that was located was confined mainly to Years 9, 10 and 11; it was neither widespread nor habitual in character, and appeared to be caused primarily by what might be termed ‘lesson difficulty’. That is, the pupil involved either did not like or could not do a particular lesson and/or had a poor relationship with a particular teacher. Post‐registration truancy (PRT) ‐ when the pupil comes to school, registers and then proceeds to miss certain or all lessons ‐ was found to be slightly more prevalent than blanket truancy (BT) ‐ when the child fails to attend school altogether and lacks authorization for failing to do so (these categories of truancy are based on the work of Stoll and O'Keeffe, 1989 and O'Keeffe, 1994). The survey strongly suggested the need for schools to engage in a debate on the nature of some aspects of the curriculum and to develop coherent and consistent whole‐school attendance policies.     

School Refuser Child Identities

“School refuser” is an always-already negative child identity. The term is used to categorize children or adolescents who appear to dislike and fear school (or aspects of school) and persistently refuse to attend or attend very unwillingly. Given that school attendance is generally considered a necessary social good, regular and anxious refusal to attend is usually understood as problematic, maladaptive behaviour. Typically, the problem is discursively linked to certain psychiatric disorders, such as separation anxiety disorder and depression. This paper critically considers the significance of the usual understanding of school refusal as pathological and school refusers as maladjusted individuals.     

Out of school: a phenomenological exploration of extended non-attendance

The concept of “extended non-attendance” (“school phobia” or “school refusal”) was distinguished from truancy early in the twentieth century, and refers to children who fear school and avoid attending. Despite much subsequent research, outcomes for those affected remain poor, and their voices remain largely absent from the evidence base. The current study sought to address this by examining the experiences of four secondary-age children with extended attendance difficulties. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews conducted in participants’ homes, subsequently analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Although participants differed markedly in their perception of the causes of their non-attendance, their support experiences appear remarkably similar. Emergent themes include being disbelieved, experiencing fragmented support, and feeling blamed and punished. Implications for practitioners include the importance of ensuring early intervention, the need to consider the individual child, and the importance of making sure that local intervention practices are informed by the evidence base.     

Reflections of being “A Man of Truancy”: 40 years on

This paper reflects upon a career of 40 years involving teaching and research into the causes and solutions for school absenteeism and truancy. It includes insights into both professional and empirical work and notes how the subject has become increasingly ‘politicised’ over the last 25–30 years by governments of both persuasions: Left and Right. It also reinforces difficulties which educational researchers can face in obtaining funding for their chosen field and notes how stubbornly difficult improving school attendance and reducing truancy and school absenteeism has become, despite innovations and the changing curriculum and educational policy scenes. Moreover, truancy has changed from being a largely male phenomenon to one where girls now play an equal role.     

The Effect of Pupil Cognitive Style and Position of Prose Passage Title on Recall

A replication of Bransford and Johnson's (1972) experiment on contextual prerequisites was carried out with the additional inclusion of cognitive styles as independent variables. A total of 77 10‐ and 11‐year‐old subjects (year 6, primary school) were asked to read a short prose passage on the topic of washing clothes. Half of the subjects were told the title of the passage before reading it and half after. All subjects attempted to free recall the passage. They had also completed the Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA) (Riding, 1991), thus providing their position on the two fundamental cognitive style dimensions: Wholist‐Analytic and Verbal‐Imagery. It was found that the Wholist‐Analytic cognitive style and title‐passage order interacted in their effect on recall (p < 0.05). Whilst Wholists performed best when the title was presented before reading the passage, the order made no difference for other individuals. This suggested that this cognitive style reflects the way individuals organise information.     

EVALUATION OF A TRUANCY DIVERSION PROGRAM AT NINE AT‐RISK MIDDLE SCHOOLS

Many schools are faced with the prospect of soaring absenteeism rates, despite the use of traditional truancy courts and other legal interventions. A recent trend in the literature has been to explore alternative, hybrid, and multidisciplinary approaches to address the underlying obstacles to school attendance. These programs are often integrated into schools to reduce stigma and transportation burdens on families. The present study involved an evaluation of a truancy diversion program in nine at‐risk middle schools in an ethnically diverse sample. Graduates from the program demonstrated significant declines in internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. In addition, participants and their parents expressed high levels of perceived improvement in academic performance. Academic tutoring was found to differentiate program graduates from nongraduates. Results are preliminary but discussed within the context of the role of school attachment in truancy diversion programs.     

Responding to Chronic Non-attendance: A review of intervention approaches

Chronic non-attendance has generally focused on the distinction between truancy and school refusal: the former has traditionally been linked to conduct disorder, the latter to separation anxiety disorder. However, research has demonstrated that truancy and school refusal exist in the absence of such disorders and, more significantly, that some children and young people exhibit the characteristics of both types of non-attendance behaviour. In the 1990s, a functional analysis became more popular in understanding the problem; that is, examining the reasons why pupils fail to attend school. This has led to more recognition of the schools' responsibility for the presenting difficulties. Research into the various intervention programmes available for tackling non-attendance has failed to find any conclusive evidence in favour of a particular approach. The effectiveness of intervention may depend upon an individual pupil's particular needs and his/her specific reasons for refusing to go to school, but also the importance of involving school and family in responding to the problem is outlined as a potentially key factor.     

Absent Without Leave: state responses to school non‐attendance

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the changing legal context of school attendance, in relation to the Education Reform Act 1988 and the Children Act 1989. The new Children Act seeks to alter legal and welfare approaches to school non‐attendance, and to ‘decriminalise’ truancy by replacing care orders with education supervision orders. The tensions that exist both within new and existing legislation, and between legislation and its implementation by education and welfare agencies are explored. While the Education Reform Act 1988 has no provisions relating specifically to school attendance, measures such as open enrolment and local management of schools impact indirectly on school non‐attendance. The Act has also contributed to the development of local and national initiatives to reduce truancy levels. Finally, the intended and unintended consequences the enforcement of regular school attendance has on the lives of truants is examined. The development of a deviant career is traced, from the initial act of not attending school, through the regulatory and labelling processes of various agencies, to the final state of being out of school and in care.     

‘Bunking off’: The impact of truancy on pupils and teachers

There is widespread interest in the impact of unauthorised absence on pupil attainment, links with disaffection, exclusion from school and criminality. However, little is heard about what those who take unauthorised absence from school think that the effect has been on them; nor do we hear the voices of other pupils and their teachers. This article presents evidence from a one‐year study of absence in seven local authorities in England funded by the Department for Education and Skills. It defines ‘truancy’, explores some issues from existing literature on pupil non‐attendance, and presents evidence to show the impact that absence from school has on truants, other pupils and teachers. Finally, it suggests that although the greatest impact is on the academic and socio‐psychological development of persistent absentees, the attitudes and learning of other pupils and the workload and morale of teachers are also affected.     

Cognitive Styles and Preferred Learning Mode,Reading Attainment and Cognitive Ability in 11‐year‐old Children

Eighty 11‐year‐old children were assessed for preferred learning mode (pictorial or text), reading attainment and cognitive ability. They also received the Cognitive Styles Analysis which gave their positions on the Wholist‐Analytic and verbal‐Imagery cognitive style dimensions. With respect to learning mode, wholists preferred the mode which corresponded to their verbal‐imagery style; verbalisers chose text while Imagers chose pictures. Analytics, by contrast, were fairly equally divided across the verbal‐imagery dimension. On reading attainment and cognitive abilities, the performance of the wholists was superior by the verbalisers and declined fairly linearly with increasing imagery style, while analytics were again fairly constant across the dimension. The results were discussed in terms of their implications for the cognitive style dimensions.     

A strategic approach to tackling school absenteeism and truancy: the PSCC scheme

This paper focuses upon a long-term strategic approach to tackling school absenteeism and truancy within secondary schools. It utilises a tiered colour-coded concept to monitor the progress of pupils within the groups and subsequently take the appropriate action. The PSCC scheme combines attainment and attendance data collected from pupils' primary schools with monitoring and enhancement strategies within the secondary school. The scheme enables schools to tackle their long-term absentees and erratic attenders as well as those who have learning and/or special needs. Over a five-year period, properly implemented, the scheme has the potential to help to transform the prevailing culture within low attendance schools. The PSCC model utilises school change strategies in a dynamic manner in order to improve the attendance, behaviour and learning support needs of pupils which, in turn, can help to raise standards and attainment levels. It can also help to improve parents' attitudes towards their children's school. Finally, it provides a managerial focal point for staff to combat pupils' absence utilising a whole school approach.