Abstract:
The aim of this presentation is to contribute to the knowledge on school attendance problems (SAPs) in different education systems. SAPs are a global issue, but actors in school respond to them in various ways. Children risk missing their right to education when they cannot attend school. Research on SAPs has increased tremendously in the past decade, but we still know too little about the perspectives of different actors, including the children themselves.
This presentation will introduce results from an international comparative research project that focused on school attendance from national, organisational and individual perspectives. The mixed-method project analysed statistics and macro data from large-scale sudies, combining these with case studies in different school systems. Data from Sweden and Germany have been analysed so far, and similar data has been collected in England and Japan. Presenting results from our comparative project, which has mainly focused on European education contexts, will be valuable in connecting to the ongoing discussions in Australia on how to analyse and address SAPs.
The presentation will begin with a very brief overview of the quantitative parts of the study, illustating the limitations of possibilities of comparing official statistics (Kreitz-Sandberg et al., 2022) and highlighting some comparative results from student results in PISA data related to attendance (Fredriksson et al., 2023, 2024). This will be followed by results from the qualitative case studies in Germany and Sweden (Backlund et al. forthcoming; Enderle et al. forthcoming). This presentation will elaborate on how professionals in schools, such as school leaders, teachers and student health teams, describe the central challenges of addressing school attendance problems in Sweden and Germany. How do they relate to different levels of school attendance work, including multi-tier systems of prevention and early intervention? The results will be interpreted through the lens of socioecological theories (Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Melvin et al., 2019) to sketch the multi-dimensionality of working with SAPs
Fredriksson, U. et al. (2024). A comparative study of sociodemographic factors and student absenteeism using PISA data. PLOS ONE, 19(5), Article ID e0300537.
Kreitz-Sandberg, S. et al., (2023). Recording and Reporting School Attendance Statistics in Sweden, Germany, England, and Japan. ORBIS SCHOLAE, 16(3), 187-212
Fredriksson, U. et al. (2023). School absenteeism among students in Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. NJCIE, 7(1), Article ID 5034.
Melvin, G., et al. (2019). An Inclusive Bioecological Systems Approach to Understanding School Attendance Problems. Frontiers in Education, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00061
This presentation will introduce results from an international comparative research project that focused on school attendance from national, organisational and individual perspectives. The mixed-method project analysed statistics and macro data from large-scale sudies, combining these with case studies in different school systems. Data from Sweden and Germany have been analysed so far, and similar data has been collected in England and Japan. Presenting results from our comparative project, which has mainly focused on European education contexts, will be valuable in connecting to the ongoing discussions in Australia on how to analyse and address SAPs.
The presentation will begin with a very brief overview of the quantitative parts of the study, illustating the limitations of possibilities of comparing official statistics (Kreitz-Sandberg et al., 2022) and highlighting some comparative results from student results in PISA data related to attendance (Fredriksson et al., 2023, 2024). This will be followed by results from the qualitative case studies in Germany and Sweden (Backlund et al. forthcoming; Enderle et al. forthcoming). This presentation will elaborate on how professionals in schools, such as school leaders, teachers and student health teams, describe the central challenges of addressing school attendance problems in Sweden and Germany. How do they relate to different levels of school attendance work, including multi-tier systems of prevention and early intervention? The results will be interpreted through the lens of socioecological theories (Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Melvin et al., 2019) to sketch the multi-dimensionality of working with SAPs
Fredriksson, U. et al. (2024). A comparative study of sociodemographic factors and student absenteeism using PISA data. PLOS ONE, 19(5), Article ID e0300537.
Kreitz-Sandberg, S. et al., (2023). Recording and Reporting School Attendance Statistics in Sweden, Germany, England, and Japan. ORBIS SCHOLAE, 16(3), 187-212
Fredriksson, U. et al. (2023). School absenteeism among students in Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. NJCIE, 7(1), Article ID 5034.
Melvin, G., et al. (2019). An Inclusive Bioecological Systems Approach to Understanding School Attendance Problems. Frontiers in Education, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00061