Background: In efforts to address chronic absenteeism, educational stakeholders have begun to focus on which school factors might link to how and if students miss school. One underexplored area within school is the context of the classroom and, namely, the spillover effects of peers. This study examined whether students were more likely to be…

Within schooling policy and practice, truancy awareness and prevention programs expend much effort on reducing fall absences under the assumption that stopping this behavior early in the year can reduce negative outcomes later on in the year. Little research has focused on whether early absences in the year correlate with later outcomes. No study…

The influence that students with special educational needs may exert on the schooling outcomes of their siblings without special educational needs has been given minimal attention in published research. Hence, the authors bring forth a unique contribution by evaluating the within-family effects of being a child without special educational needs in…

The literature on school absences has focused predominantly on the reasons for student truancy, or it has assessed only aggregate student absences in their effect on achievement. However, this study brings forth a new issue: the relationship between types of absences--excused versus unexcused--and school performance. With a quantitative model of…