The Behaviour of Persistent School Absentees

Abstract

Summary. The Rutter (1967) Children's Behaviour Questionnaire (Scale B) was given to 77 persistent absentees and their two control groups in the third, fourth and fifth years at a large inner‐city comprehensive school in a deprived area in South Wales over a three‐week period. The results showed that the persistent absentees depicted significantly worse behavioural traits than the pupils in the two control groups and exuded higher levels of neurotic and anti‐social conduct. Some interesting group and sex differences were found within these data. The implications of these results are discussed in the light of recent findings.

The views of learning mentors on the management of school attendance

“…The remainder believed that 'pupils who miss school should be given extra classes or help to enable them to catch up with their work during school time.' Perhaps the reason for this may lie in the fact that it is the learn- Reid, 1984). Table 11 provides some of the most interesting findings from the survey.…”

“…They include a wide range of home, social, economic, social-psychological and psychological indices. For example, persistent school absentees have been found to have lower academic self-concepts, low general levels of self-esteem, greater patterns of alienation from school on certain issues, and higher levels of neuroticism and antisocial behavior (Reid, 1982(Reid, , 1984(Reid, , 1999(Reid, , 2002b.…”

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

“…Reid 1981;1982a, 1982b, 1982c, 1982d, 1982e, 1983a, 1983b, 1983c, 1984a, 1984b, 1984c, 1985a, 1986, 1987, 1989aHopkins and Reid 1985;Reid, Hopkins, and Holly 1988) on truancy and school absenteeism. Since then, and to this day, there has rarely been a period when I have not been involved in some way into truancy or related fields.…”

School Organization and Persistent School Absenteeism: An Introduction to a Complex Problem

“…All my experiences make me utterly convinced that the majority of absentees are grateful for any intervention measures conducted on their behalf, provided these are sensibly handled. The latter statement, however, does not apply to some of the 'disrupters' in this category (Reid, 1982d). Many remedial measures only demand tact, skill and comparatively small changes in the attitudes of staff and in the school 'rules'.…”

“…There has been Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 00:26 11 June 2016 too little research related to the treatment and management of school absenteesalthough the Department of Education at University College, Swansea has taken a lead in this field (see Carroll, 1977). Findings which are available suggest that different types of absentees require different treatment approaches (Hamblin, 1977), especially disruptive absentees (Reid, 1982d).…”