Interview-Based Qualitative Descriptive Study on Risk Factors of School Withdrawal among Elementary School Children

Abstract

With increasing school refusal among elementary school children, we qualitatively examined the associated factors. Elementary school teachers underwent semi-structured interviews, and the data generated were analyzed using SCAT. We conducted interviews with 27 teachers (18 men, nine women) responsible for children refusing to attend school. We analyzed verbatim transcripts of the interviews and abstracted six constructs for school refusal: underdeveloped interpersonal skills; families having difficulty in supporting their children to attend school; low self-esteem; diverse views on school refusal; tenuous relationships among local community members; and an environment where games and media are easily accessible. Children refusing to attend school may be unable to relate well to other people owing to underdeveloped interpersonal skills, and they may have low self-esteem. Regarding the home environment of children who are not positive about school life, living in families having difficulty in supporting their children to attend school may make the children less likely to do so. Because of tenuous relationships with local community members, there has been a decline in the involvement of people around children other than family members in encouraging school attendance. Recently, diverse views on school refusal have been accepted; increasingly, parents and children are likely to choose to spend time outside school. An environment in which games and media are easily accessible may make it easy to relate to other people without attending school, undermining the need for school attendance.

A Systematic Scoping Review on Research Focusing on Professionals’ Attitudes toward School Attendance Problems

“…2 Categorized under SAPs as the term is broadly conceptualized and used as a general term referring to unauthorized absenteeism [30,33,[36][37][38]47,51,61,62,64,68,70,72,73]. 3 Categorized under SR as the term is used interchangeably with SR [49].…”

“…The term SRB was employed in two of the studies included in the scoping review. In one study, it served as an umbrella term for SR and TR [34]; meanwhile, it was used interchangeably with SR in the other study [49].…”

“…School phobia was one of the first terms referring to SR [104] but has received less attention than SR in more recent years as it has been described as more focused on the reason behind the behavior rather than the actual behavior [90]. Moreover, the terms "emotionally based school non-attendance" [40] and SW [49] were employed in one study each to refer to SR; the former was used on the grounds that terms such as SR and school phobia are "overly locating the 'problem' within the school setting, or as perpetuating negative stereotypes about the affected pupils" [40]. The latter term, SW, was used interchangeably with SR but is generally distinguished from SR, as it refers to parentinitiated absence as opposed to student-initiated absence [10].…”