Youths’ perspectives on the reasons underlying school truancy and opportunities to improve school attendance.
Open accessAbstract
School truancy is common in the United States; however, youths’ perspectives on the underlying reasons for and the best ways to curtail this phenomenon are lacking. This project sought to better understand what factors contribute to youths’ decisions to skip classes or ditch full days of school over time and to solicit youths’ recommendations on how to reduce truancy and improve system functioning. We used a community partnered qualitative descriptive approach to conduct in-depth interviews with 39 youths with a history of truancy from South and East Los Angeles. Youths’ experiences and recommendations illustrate the multiple factors that influence school truancy and suggest potential leverage points for reducing truancy, including modifications to the school environment to increase student engagement; a more effective school response to address truancy; and further involvement and engagement of parents. Researchers, policy makers, and school practitioners can use results to help inform efforts to address school truancy.
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This study illustrates the overlap with teaching professionals' understanding of interest-based curricula, alternative provisions, and adapted teaching practices that match individual needs.
“this study also illustrates the overlap with teaching professionals' understanding of interest-based curricula, alternative provisions, and adapted teaching practices that match individual needs.”
From Their voices matter: student and professional perspectives on overcoming school attendance problems in the context of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties (2025) · cites this paper as Gase et al., 2016
The sections on school curriculum and instructional style and youths’ recommendations report that students valued interesting classes, engaging teaching and individual attention. The section on relationships with teachers and counselors also describes students’ appreciation of smaller continuation schools. These passages support the educational approaches named, but they report youths’ perspectives, not teaching professionals’ understanding or a demonstrated overlap with it; page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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Cites
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Approaches to improving school attendance: Insights from australian principals.
Mills, M., Howell, A., Lynch, D., & Dungan, J. (2021) · Leadership and Policy in Schools · doi:10.1080/15700763.2019.1695847 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Enderle, C., Kotschy, L., Ricking, H., & Kreitz-Sandberg, S. (2025) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2025.1627098 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gase, L., DeFosset, A., Perry, R., & Kuo, T.
- Affiliations
- Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (US)
- Venue
- The Qualitative Report
- Publisher
- Nova Southeastern University
- Published
- 2016-02-15
- ISSN
- 1052-0147 (ISSN-L)
- 2160-3715
- OpenAlex
- W2282972025
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 4 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 11.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-sa
- Locations
- The Qualitative Report (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- NSUWorks (Nova Southeastern University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Funders
- Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
- National Institutes of Health (TL1TR000121, UL1TR000124)
- University of California, Los Angeles (UL1 TR000124)
- Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University of California, Los Angeles (UL1TR000124)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Youth Substance Use and School Attendance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Youth Education and Societal Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Outcomes and Influences
- Keywords
- truancy, school attendance, youth perspectives, student engagement, school environment, parental involvement, truancy prevention, Los Angeles
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