Truancy: Consequences and Causes

Consequences of Truancy

• Dropping out of school. Students who are chronically truant typically fall behind in grade level and drop out of school.
• Delinquency. Students who are chronically truant are also at-risk for other behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and delinquency.
• Negative effect upon other students. Students who are chronically truant require extra time from teachers; teachers have less time to spend with the regularly-attending students in the classroom when they must create make-up work for truants.

Causes of Truancy

What influences truancy? In early research, depending upon the perspective of the researcher, truancy was said to be caused by the student, the student’s family, or the school. More recently, it is understood that a combination of all three factors usually affect truancy:

Characteristics of the Student:

• low grades in reading and mathematics
• neurological factors, such as dyslexia
• inability to make friends with mainstream students or teachers
• negative attitudes toward school or teachers

Characteristics of the Student’s Family:
• parent(s) who do not value education
• parent(s) who did not complete school, were truant themselves
• poor parenting skills
• low socio-economic status
• physical or mental health problems of parents
• family history of delinquency
• single parent families
• many children in the family

Characteristics of the School:
• weak or no monitoring of daily attendance
• inconsistent attendance policies
• lack of parent involvement in the school
• lack of personalized attention to students
• lack of teacher expectations for high student achievement 

Bibliography 

truancy. (s.f.). Truancy Prevention . Obtenido de http://www.truancyprevention.org/