Absenteeism: A Review of the Literature and School Psychology’s Role

Abstract

A major problem faced by schools across the country is student absenteeism. Although the problem is pervasive in American schools, the attention focused on this issue has been inadequate. Poor student attendance has far reaching effects on the individual, the school, and society in general. The intent of this paper is to document the problem, summarize existing research on mediating factors, provide a summary of interventions for improving student attendance rates in schools, and to offer specific suggestions for school psychologists. In addition, specific attention is given to suggestions for future research to help expand the current understanding of the causes and remediation of poor student attendance.Keywords: Attendance, Truancy, InterventionOne major barrier to learning faced by students and teachers in American schools today is a lack of consistent attendance in classrooms. In fact, the United States Department of Education (1994) has cited absenteeism as the most important factor linked to performance differences among students, and absenteeism has recently been identified as being at crisis proportion (Kearney, 2003). Although many schools realize the importance of this issue, educational researchers have not consistently given this topic the attention it deserves (Corville-Smith, 1995). Additionally, while some attempts to increase attendance rates have been successful, the methodologies used have had notable disadvantages including cost, drainage of faculty resources, difficulty of implementation, or time consumption (DeKalb, 1999;Lamdin, 1996).Researchers have attacked this problem from a number of directions. For example, interventions have been community-based (McPartland & Nettles, 1991;Reid & Bailey-Dempsey, 1995), familybased (Copeland, Brown, & Hall, 1974;Volkman, 1996), and school-based (Gottfredson, Jones, & Gore, 2002;Noonan & Thibeault, 1974). The intent of this paper is to summarize existing research on improving attendance rates in schools and offer suggestions for school psychologists on how they can become involved in formulating interventions to help schools deal with problems of attendance. AbsenteeismTruancy has been labeled one of the top 10 major problems in American schools, and rates of absenteeism have reached as high as 30% in some cities. In New York City, an estimated 150,000 out of 1,000,000 students are absent daily (DeKalb, 1999). Similarly, the Los Angeles Unified School District reports that 10% of its students are absent daily, and only half return to school with written Correspondence should be addressed to Steven G. Little; Department of Educational and School Psychology; Benerd School of Education; University of the Pacific; 3601 Pacific Avenue; Stockton, CA 95211. Electronic mail may be sent via Internet to slittle@uop.edu. The California School Psychologist, Vol. 8, pp. 127-139, 2003 Copyright 2003 California Association of School Psychologists The California School Psychologist, 2003 excuses (DeKalb). Although school officials are unsure as to the proportion o...

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