Abstract
The Warnock report was instrumental in highlighting the need to individualise educational supports for children and adolescents with disabilities in order to foster optimal educational outcomes. When children and adolescents are absent from school or experience school attendance problems, their educational outcomes are jeopardized as is their social and emotional development. Proximal and distal individual, parental, familial, and environmental factors have been implicated in the development and maintenance of absenteeism and school attendance problems. The complex interaction amongst these factors calls for a multifactorial approach to understanding the development of school attendance problems. The current paper presents a bioecological systems framework for examining risk factors for school absenteeism and school attendance problems among all school-aged students. The framework aims to identify the concurrent influence of factors across multiple contexts such as home, school, and society. We propose candidate factors of particular relevance to school attendance problems in school age students, and organise them in a bioecological systems framework, known as the Kids and Teens at School (KiTeS) framework. The framework is inclusive of students with and without disabilities and provides a guiding structure to researchers aiming to improve understanding of the factors that influence absenteeism and school attendance problems.
Highlights
INTRODUCTIONAs construed by any culture, is essential for the cognitive and social-emotional development of all children and adolescents (hereafter referred to as youth)
School, as construed by any culture, is essential for the cognitive and social-emotional development of all children and adolescents
In the US chronic absenteeism has been described as a “hidden crisis,” with nationwide data showing that 16% of youth had absences of 15 or more days during the 2015–16 school year (U.S Department of Education, 2016)
Summary
As construed by any culture, is essential for the cognitive and social-emotional development of all children and adolescents (hereafter referred to as youth). It represents preparation for life beyond school, irrespective of the youth’s abilities or disabilities (Warnock Report; Department for Education and Science, 1978). Attending school can be understood as a behavior and as a developmental outcome because it is a marker of the youth’s developmental capacity to separate from their caregiver and be engaged at school
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