School attendance problems (SAPs) have traditionally been viewed as a result of behavioral challenges in student populations. Increasing evidence suggests, however, that a substantial portion of SAPs and school refusal behaviors are related to underlying anxiety in students. The school counselor, as an advocate for all students, is well-positioned…

School attendance is a rising issue in public schools. Students regularly absent from school can end up involved in destructive behaviors and dropout of school. Family characteristics are strong determining factors in students' school attendance. This presents the question, "Can family involvement improve public school students'…

Afterschool programs have been operating for decades in communities across the country, and federal investment in afterschool has increased dramatically since the mid-1990s. However, even more investment in the field of afterschool, which includes before school, afterschool and summer learning programs, is needed to keep up with the growing…

Unauthorized absence from school, commonly labelled truancy, absenteeism, and dropout, is a problem that has been increasingly noted in recent years by the National Agency for Education, county councils, communities, and media in Sweden. It is also a prioritized issue in Europe and worldwide. Many students leave school without credentials or a…

Problematic school absenteeism in youth has long been a complex and vexatious issue for psychologists, educators, and researchers from other disciplines. An examination of problematic school absenteeism from different perspectives over many decades has led to poor comparability across publications, policies, and assessment and intervention…

This composition of related attendance studies of both Canada and the United States includes (1) a review of school attendance/nonattendance literature for 1975-86, the results, and a discussion involving the topics of nonattendance correlations, causes, and intervention; (2) a survey of compulsory school attendance legislation, the results, and a…

Student absenteeism has been declining in the United States since records were first kept in the late nineteenth century. Even so, some districts, usually urban, have found absentee rates doubling or even tripling over the last ten years. The tendency of teacher absenteeism to rise in districts where student absenteeism has increased sharply…

Student absenteeism has become a major concern of educators, parents, and communities. Accordingly, this paper presents a series of annotations of articles addressing three aspects of this problem: (1) explanations of student absenteeism, including descriptions of the habitual offender, along with school, peer, and community influences; (2)…

The article reviews the literature regarding the psychopathology of truant behavior, the implications of truancy, and truancy interventions, suggesting that the effectiveness of truancy intervention could be increased by implementing a multimodal approach combining student, family, and school factors. (SM)

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,…