Abstract
As noted in Part 1 of this two-part review, school attendance is an important foundational competency for children and adolescents, and school absenteeism has been linked to myriad short- and long-term negative consequences, even into adulthood. Categorical and dimensional approaches for this population have been developed. This article (Part 2 of a two-part review) discusses compatibilities of categorical and dimensional approaches for school attendance and school absenteeism and how these approaches can inform one another. The article also poses a multidimensional multi-tiered system of supports pyramid model as a mechanism for reconciling these approaches, promoting school attendance (and/or prevention of school absenteeism), establishing early warning systems for nimble response to school attendance problems, assisting with global policy review and dissemination and implementation, and adapting to future changes in education and technology.
Highlights
The field of school attendance and absenteeism (SA/A) remains, as it has always been, at various crossroads
Key dimensional aspects of SA/A include defining school attendance and its problems along a continuum, multitiered system of supports for preventative and intervention strategies arranged according to student need, risk/contextual factors, absenteeism severity, developmental level, and functional profiles of school attendance problems
A key task moving forward will be to draw from the validity of all approaches to design a framework for SA/A that can facilitate the promotion of school attendance, nimble responses to emerging school absenteeism, effective policy review across jurisdictions, wide dissemination to various locations and settings, and adaptation to future, rapid changes in education and technology
Summary
The field of school attendance and absenteeism (SA/A) remains, as it has always been, at various crossroads. The functional model was designed to be flexibly applied to different clinical and educational settings to account for differences in local practices as well as the heterogeneity of school attendance problems and to enhance the treatment utility of assessment (Nelson-Gray, 2003) With respect to the latter, a primary function based on relative strength to the others may be categorically chosen as a starting point for prescriptive intervention (Kearney and Silverman, 1999). Risk and contextual factors of SA/A, for example, are commonly studied or grouped into child-, parent-, family-, peer-, school-, community-, cultural-, and even government-based distinctions, as well as how these distinctions change across locations (Kearney, 2008; Lamb et al, 2010; Correia and Marques-Pinto, 2016; Şahin et al, 2016) Researchers examine these risk factors via spectra of accumulated risk as well as via statistical modeling to compare the contributed risk of each group (Chen et al, 2016; Goodrich et al, 2017; Chung and Lee, 2019; Sansone, 2019). We posit a multidimensional multitiered system of supports pyramid model of SA/A that allows space to explore these research avenues while simultaneously charting preventative and intervention processes for immediate dissemination and implementation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call