School refusal is considered a risk factor for academic, social, and personal situations, such as school dropouts. Studies have been carried out on school refusal for almost 50 years. However, ...general research trends have not been mapped yet. This study summarizes the bibliometric analysis of scientific collaborations and prevalence across locations by country and institution, leading researchers, journals, and trends (keywords) in school refusal research. The United States, Japan, Spain, and England are the countries that stand out in terms of school refusal. It can be said that the Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, and Frontiers in Psychology are important journals that publish on school refusal. Researchers named Christopher A. Kearney, Carolina Gonzálvez, Jose Manuel Garcia-Fernandez, David A. Heyne, and Brigit M. Van Widenfelt have been found to have more intensive studies and collaborations on school refusal. The authors keywords common use for school refusal; are truancy, school absenteeism, adolescence, school attendance, school phobia, autism spectrum disorder, and bullying. The findings show that school refusal is a current research area, and scientific collaborations continue to be established. The findings reveal all the details of the school refusal research.
Health alterations and school refusal behavior may significantly affect student evolution in all areas of student lives. The objective of this study was to use latent profile analysis to identify ...school refusal profiles sustained by negative reinforcement and to determine their relationship with distinct self-perceived health variables (Satisfaction, Well-being, Resilience, Performance, and Risk-Taking). The School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised (SRAS-R) and the Child Health and Illness Profile (CHIP-CE/CRF) were administered to 737 students (60.9% male) aged between 8 and 10 (
= 8.76,
= 0.74). Three profiles of school refusal maintained by negative reinforcement were obtained: no risk, moderate risk, and high risk. It was confirmed that school refusal through negative reinforcement correlates negatively with health dimensions, also finding that a higher risk profile for school refusal is associated with lower levels of self-perceived health. Similarly, it was determined that the high-risk profile is the most maladaptive, with significantly lower data in four of the five self-perceived health dimensions that were evaluated. In conclusion, remaining in situations with no or moderate risk of school refusal due to negative reinforcement encourages higher levels of self-perceived health, while being at high risk of school refusal due to negative reinforcement is associated with worse self-perceived health.
Background
Anxiety may be associated with poor attendance at school, which can lead to a range of adverse outcomes. We systematically reviewed the evidence for an association between anxiety and poor ...school attendance.
Methods
Seven electronic databases were searched for quantitative studies that reported an estimate of association between anxiety and school attendance. Anxiety had to be assessed via standardised diagnostic measure or validated scale. Articles were screened independently by two reviewers. Meta‐analyses were performed where possible, otherwise results were synthesised narratively.
Results
A total of 4930 articles were screened. Eleven studies from six countries across North America, Europe and Asia, were included. School attendance was categorised into: (a) absenteeism (i.e. total absences), (b) excused/medical absences, (c) unexcused absences/truancy and (d) school refusal. Findings from eight studies suggested associations between truancy and any anxiety disorder, as well as social and generalised anxiety. Results also suggested cross‐sectional associations between school refusal and separation, generalised and social anxiety disorders, as well as simple phobia. Few studies investigated associations with absenteeism or excused/medical absences.
Conclusions
Findings suggest associations between anxiety and unexcused absences/truancy, and school refusal. Clinicians should consider the possibility of anxiety in children and adolescents with poor attendance. However, there is a lack of high quality evidence, little longitudinal research and limited evidence relating to overall absenteeism or excused/medical absences, despite the latter being the most common type of absence. These gaps should be a key priority for future research.
Background
A generation has passed since the literature on the conceptualisation, assessment and treatment of school refusal was reviewed in this journal (Elliott, ). In the light of considerable ...gaps in the literature, identified at that time, and growing international interest, the current paper sought to identify progress subsequently made this century.
Methods
We open with discussion of continuing conceptual uncertainty as to whether school refusal should incorporate both truancy and absenteeism marked by anxiety and distress. We then consider progress in treatment, and conclude by examining prognosis and subsequent adult functioning. In selecting intervention studies for review, our primary focus has been upon RCTS, systematic reviews and meta‐analyses.
Results
The literature review indicates that, since the turn of the century, there has been little substantial advance in knowledge that can guide practitioners. Many of the issues raised in the 1999 paper, in particular, conceptual confusion over this heterogeneous condition, a dearth of rigorous RCT designs, limited knowledge of underlying mechanisms and uncertainty as to the long‐term effects of specific forms of intervention, are little clearer than before.
Conclusions
While several sound publications are available to guide intervention for school refusal, there is a continuing need for rigorous studies that can provide evidence to support individualised and tailored responses to an incapacitating problem with many causes and manifestations. While a multisystemic response to intervention approach is considered attractive, the practicalities of operating this across disparate professional borders are likely to present a long‐term challenge.
School refusal and other school attendance problems are vexing problems for school-aged youth, families, school personnel, and clinicians. However, few resources exist to detect problematic ...attendance. The current report describes three steps of a research-community partnership to develop an early identification program to detect youth at risk for problematic attendance. First, a survey was conducted to estimate the scope and cost of school refusal across grades K–12. School administrators estimated relatively few youth exhibiting significant school refusal (missing 5 or more days per year) but estimated the costs associated with services for these youth to be very high (mean cost of in-district programs: $94,052; mean cost of out-of-district placements: $496,657). Second, elementary school counselors were tasked with tracking absenteeism among at-risk youth using an online attendance tracking prototype. Counselors identified a high number of youth who showed elevated absences, lates, or early departures (17.2% of enrolled students), and counselor ratings were significantly related to whether the student (a) had received an individualized education plan or 504 plan, (b) had a sibling with similar attendance problems, (c) was older, or (d) had divorced or separated parents. In a final step, counselor feedback was sought and revisions were incorporated in the attendance tracker. Findings reinforce the prevalence and cost of school attendance problems, provide guidance for using technology to monitor attendance and related indices (tardies, early departures), and direct attention to youth factors that may be useful in identifying youth at risk for poor attendance.
•Introduces an online early identification tool to detect youth at risk for school attendance problems•Describes the iterative process of developing the tool within the context of a research-community partnership•School absenteeism is a common and costly problem and technology can be used to enhance early identification.
In order to use attendance monitoring within an integrative strategy for preventing, assessing and addressing cases of youth with school absenteeism, we need to know whether the attendance data ...collected by schools cover all students with (emerging) school attendance problems (SAPs). The current article addresses this issue by comparing administrative attendance data collected by schools with self-reported attendance data from the same group of students (age 15-16) in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (
= 4344). We seek to answer the following question: does an estimation of unauthorized absenteeism based on attendance data as collected by schools through electronic registration differ from self-reported unauthorized absenteeism and, if so, are the differences between administrative and self-reported unauthorized absenteeism systematic? Our results revealed a weak association between self-reported unauthorized school absenteeism and registered unauthorized school absenteeism. Boys, students in technical and vocational tracks and students who speak a foreign language at home, with a less-educated mother and who receive a school allowance, received more registered unauthorized absences than they reported themselves. In addition, pupils with school refusal and who were often authorized absent from school received more registered unauthorized absences compared to their self-reported unauthorized school absenteeism. In the discussion, we elaborate on the implications of our findings.
Over the last decade, the phenomenon of young people suffering from social withdrawal (hikikomori) has become a social emergency in many countries. The aim of this review is to analyse whether and ...how researchers have considered the relationship between the emergence and spread of hikikomori and the characteristics that educational contexts assume in neoliberal societies. The searches, which were conducted in the Web of Science, Scopus, Proquest and JStore databases, identified 73 articles published since 2000. The results confirm that in many cases authors have adopted a single-axis perspective as the key to interpreting the phenomenon, focusing on single factors (“psychiatrization” of the problem, diagnostic approach, proposals for recovery, etc.) or using traditional medical research tools. The review also identifies some studies that provide evidence in favour of how certain interventions in the school environment can contribute to re-socializing young hikikomori.
•Many subjects began to isolate themselves socially while attending school.•Middle-class and masculine gender generally prevails.•The psychiatric/psychological approach remains predominant in the study of hikikomori.•Educational environment is underestimated in relation to the occurrence of hikikomori.•Educational neoliberal policies are not taken into account as a possible co-factor.
Extended school non-attendance, commonly named truancy or school refusal, has over the last decade attracted attention among educational researchers. This article points to a need for theoretical ...perspectives that can account for the complexity and ambiguity of the phenomenon. The article presents a critical analysis of the research field of extended school non-attendance. It is argued that both the school refusal/truancy terminology as well as more environment sensitive approaches support a simplifying and individualising representation of extended school non-attendance. It is further argued that much research focuses on the prevalence of psychopathology in children with extended school non-attendance, and therefore eliminates the voices of these children. Based on the analysis, the article proposes a theoretical framework based on poststructuralism and new materialism as a way to grasp the complex phenomenon of extended school non-attendance.
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