Comparative Perspectives on School Attendance, Absenteeism, and Preventive Measures in Europe and Beyond

Abstract There is growing concern in many countries about school absenteeism with its wide range of topics and challenges. International comparative studies on school attendance are rare. Methods, actors’ perspectives, theoretical stance and approaches to comparison also vary in the field. We want to shed new light on school attendance, absenteeism, and prevention for counteracting related problems. We propose new research questions to the study of attendance, absenteeism, and preventive measures in international and comparative research.

showed that there are great differences between countries in the percentage of students who have reported that they have skipped school.Also using PISA data, Keppens and Spruyt (2018) suggested that absence can be related to the specifics of different education systems.However, much more research needs to be done if we are to understand the relationship between school absenteeism and the different characteristics and forms of education system organizations.A scoping review of literature for the period 1980-2020 on school attendance and related problems showed a dominance of publications from the US, Australia, UK, and Japan, but also listed articles from India, China, and Singapore as well as European countries such as the Netherlands, Finland, Spain, and Sweden (Heyne et al., 2020).The field is definitely international, but this does not necessarily mean it is sufficiently represented through international comparative studies.
The ambition behind this special issue of the journal European Education is to collect different types of studies that can shed new light on attendance and absence in schools, and the backgrounds, measures, and policies for counteracting related problems in Europe and beyond.In the title we use the terms school attendance, absenteeism, and preventive measures.Regarding school attendance, we generally want to explore the phenomena of children and youth being in school or missing out on their legal right to education.Much recent literature uses the term school attendance problems (SAPs) to describe a breadth of varying challenges (Heyne et al., 2019).The term absenteeism, or problematic absenteeism, is also frequently used for the phenomenon of nonattendance with its wide range of topics and challenges.We will return to terms and questions of definitions later in the text, but we do not wish to limit the authors' work by prescribing given definitions or preferred terms.The field of prevention is another issue that deserves more attention, and we will return later to developing thoughts on this field.

Short Presentations of the Articles in the Special Issue
The idea for this special issue was born as part of an international comparative research project on national, organizational, and individual dimensions of school attendance problems in an international comparison (see https://www.su.se/english/research/research-projects/school-attendanceproblems-in-an-international-comparative-perspective).We, the editors of this special issue, wanted to collect and present research from the field of international and comparative education and other relevant areas dealing with school attendance and absenteeism.We decided early on not to include any articles from our own projects but to explore through an open call who would like to contribute to such a special issue.The main criteria for the inclusion of articles in this issue is their quality and their contribution to research on school attendance, absenteeism, and preventive measures in Europe and beyond, with focus on methodological and theoretical questions in the international and comparative education field.
As a result of a call published in autumn 2022, we had the opportunity to select five articles to be part of this special issue.Here, we will first share a short presentation of the articles, and then later discuss related topics such as methods, perspectives, approaches to comparison, terms, and theories.We will also present conclusions and develop ideas for further studies and future research in the field.

Chiara Enderle, Heinrich Ricking, and Gisela C. Schulz: School Absenteeism in Germany: A Shift from Punishment to Support?
This article is the result of an analysis of policy documents guiding the work with absenteeism in the Federal Republic of Germany, at both the federal level and the level of the states within the federation.In Germany, the different states (Bundesl€ ander) within the federal republic (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) have different policies.The article explores legal and educational components in the guidance documents of the German federal states, and investigates how absenteeism has been met with formal (legislative and administrative) measures in the different states.
In many cases these policies can be characterized as formal procedures, which include punitive measures, police actions, and/or economic sanctions.The authors compare strategies in the 16 federal states, and specifically analyze a recent document from one of them (Schleswig-Holstein) that can be regarded as signalizing a change in the present policies.This new type of policy focuses more on educational dimensions and school-wide strategies for prevention than earlier policies, which have focused more on punishment.The new type of policy can be seen as a strategy combining systematic measures for early intervention and initiatives for the reintegration of students with long-term absence into the general and vocational education system.

Ola Strandler and Martin Harling: The Problem of "Problematic School Absenteeism" -On the Logics of Institutional Work with Absent Students' Well-Being and Knowledge Development
This article uses a neoinstitutional theoretical approach to analyze and compare different actors' (e.g., teachers, mentors, special educators, principals, school nurses, psychiatrists) institutional work with "problematic school absenteeism".It builds on an ethnographically inspired case study of a school in Sweden that identified increased school absenteeism.Data were generated from four cases at the school, each consisting of an absent student and the actors who work with issues related to absenteeism there.The article shows how a dichotomous view on how to prevent problematic school absenteeism is established among the actors, with the focus on the students' well-being or knowledge development.The authors describe a presence of bureaucratic and professional logics, which seems to challenge the idea of integrating a concern for students' knowledge development and concern for their well-being.

Jessica E. Granieri, Hannah E. Morton, Raymond G. Romanczyk and Jennifer M. Gillis Mattson: Profiles of School Refusal among Neurodivergent Youth
This article focuses on school refusal among neurodivergent youth, and is based on a quantitative study building on a convenience sample of parents of neurodivergent and community youth that was conducted in the USA.Caregivers were asked to complete an online questionnaire.Latent profile analysis was conducted to identify profiles of school and demographic variables associated with parent-reported school refusal for 482 neurodivergent and community youth (ages 6-17).Four profiles were identified and characterized based on neurotype and educational placement: (1) neurodivergent youth with high school refusal and frequent time in general education, (2) neurodivergent youth with high school refusal and infrequent time in general education, (3) autistic youth with low school refusal and infrequent time in general education, and (4) community youth with low school refusal and frequent time in general education.The comparison of the different subgroups showed that neurodivergent youth were at high risk of school refusal.There emerged two groups of youth with high school refusal with higher autistic and ADHD traits compared to the other groups; the study showed particular vulnerability among these youth.It also showed that "externalizing symptoms, bullying victimization, and academic and social support needs should be considered within the context of the school setting, and providing needed supports may help to maintain school engagement".

Åsa Sundelin, Joakim Lindgren, and Lisbeth Lundahl: Young People's Stories of School Failure and Remedial Trajectories -Clues to Prevention of School Absenteeism and Early School Leaving
This article aims to deepen the understanding of how a Swedish remedial introduction programme in upper secondary education for students with extensive learning gaps in compulsory school may affect school attendance and the transition to further studies or work.Interview subjects were students who either attended or would likely be referred to the remedial introduction programme, which, according to the Swedish Education Act, is to provide support for eligibility for a national upper secondary education programme or prepare students for other education or working life.Students failing to complete compulsory education often have a history of problematic school absenteeism.These students are at risk of early school leaving, and run increased risks of weak connections to the labor market, poor health, and social vulnerability.Following remedial or intermediate educational trajectories, they have more limited choice opportunities than other students.Most of the interviewed students expressed that the introduction programme "constitutes a positive alternative learning environment that may prevent school dropout and early school leaving by enabling school success and rebuilding students' self-confidence as learners and appreciated members of a school class".The article provided new knowledge about the preconditions for a successful transition to and completion of upper secondary education in Sweden, and how to counteract the risk of early school leaving among students with high absenteeism.

J€ org-Henrik Heine and Christine S€ alzer: Socially Jetlagged and Late for School: Chronotypes, Achievement and Truancy among 15-Year-Old Students in PISA 2018
This article uses data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), but also includes additional data collected in Germany as part of the 2018 PISA study on students' chronotypes.Chronotype refers to a person's tendency to sleep at a particular time during a 24-hour period, which can be manifested among individuals as early risers or late starters.To measure the students' chronotypes, an adapted version of the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ) was used.This unique data were used to study chronotypes, socioeconomic backgrounds, achievement, and truancy among 15-year-old students in Germany.To get a measure of the students' chronotypes, the concept of social jet lag was used in order to get a number on how much they had to adjust their own sleep habits to the socially defined schedules at school.A stepwise linear regression analysis was conducted.Socioeconomic background, social jet lag, and achievement were identified as significant predictors of truancy.While the students' socioeconomic background plays a key role as a predictor of truancy, social jet lag is the second characteristic that significantly predicts it.Results from the regression models show that the students' truancy score is related to their chronotype, and both in turn explain about 1 per cent to 2 per cent of additional variance in their results in the three PISA literacy domains (reading, mathematics, and science).What implications this may have for educational policy and practice are discussed, and the authors suggest that education policy-makers may need to rethink the tight structures of compulsory education that demand that students have lessons at school during the morning hours, regardless of their priorities or inner body clock.

Methods, Perspectives, and Approaches of Comparison in the Featured Articles
The five articles present different methods and different actors' perspectives on school absenteeism, and their approaches to comparison also vary.The articles are written by researchers from three different countries, and are based on data collected in these countries.Enderle, Ricking, and Schulz have based their study on data from Germany, as have Heine and S€ alzer.Strandler and Harling, as well as Sundelin, Lindgren, and Lundahl, collected their data in Sweden.Finally, Granieri, Morton, Romanczyk, and Mattson conducted their study in the US.This provides perspectives from different countries and education contexts.Although the comparisons are not between countries, there are still comparative dimensions in all five articles.Enderle et al. describe the situation concerning policies in Germany through analysis and comparison of the policies in the 16 German federal states.Strandler and Harling, as well as Sundelin et al., introduce case studies from Sweden and provide much of the context needed to understand the reality in these Swedish schools.Comparison is made relevant by taking into account, for example (sometimes contrasting), perspectives of teachers and other professionals.This means that central elements of and approaches to comparative education are exemplified in these articles.
The articles in this volume, applying both large-scale quantitative and small-scale qualitative studies, reflect that different methodological approaches contribute to the international and comparative research field.Two of the articles (Granieri et al.; Heine and S€ alzer) apply different quantitative research strategies.Granieri et al. collected data from a convenience sample of caregivers of neurodivergent youth and community youth.By collecting data from a large number of caregivers, they open up for a broad understanding of the relationship between absenteeism and neurodivergence.Based on their collected data, they can compare the challenges among different groups of neurodivergent youth who struggle with absence.They also can provide some advice regarding what kind of support in schools may promote school attendance.Heine and S€ alzer, using data from the 2018 German PISA study, have been able to analyze the results from a representative sample of 15-year-old students in Germany.Using what they refer to as predictors of truancy, they compare students who are different in respect to socioeconomic background, social jet lag, and achievement.In their article they shed new light on absence and its background in relation to an issue that has not often been discussed in this context-chronotypes.Heine and S€ alzer's article is an example of how data from large-scale assessment studies can be used by combining it with research that goes beyond the preliminary goal of the data used.
Three of the articles (Enderle et al.; Strandler and Harling; Sundelin et al.) use different qualitative approaches.Enderle et al. looked at documents to analyze how the federal states in Germany intend to handle issues related to absenteeism.This approach offers insight into the actual intentions of policies as well as how changes in policies can be seen, and provides new evidence on differences in educational policy between different entities within one country.The use of different methodological approaches in their research and the choice of theoretical frameworks is related to, among other things, the disciplines the education researchers feel most closely connected to.Much recent research on absenteeism applies psychological approaches, with a tendency toward individualized questions related to absenteeism.Here, the articles that focus on the organization of how to handle absenteeism (Harling and Strandler; Sundelin et al.) and policy analysis (Enderle et al.) are welcome to broaden the research perspectives.All these differences between the articles create an interesting indication of possible approaches to and perspectives on school attendance and absenteeism.Some differences are related to the fact that the articles' authors have conducted their research in different (inter-)national research contexts and are connected to different research traditions.
The articles presented here are not only based on different research strategies and ways of approaching the collection and analysis of data, but also provide different actors' perspectives.Sundelin et al. interviewed a selection of students with experience of absenteeism about how they would describe their educational trajectories, experiences of supportive and non-supportive aspects, and perceptions of the transition to further studies or work.This contributes knowledge on students' perspectives concerning absenteeism and the challenges related to it.Strandler and Harling, through interviews, observations, and recordings of student health conferences, looked at different actors' perspectives on absenteeism at one school and analyzed how these actors experience and handle challenges.These articles offer new insights into institutional practices and issues of organization, representing different actors and highlighting the need to find common definitions.The data in the PISA study, which was analyzed by Heine and S€ alzer, builds on students' answers in closed questionnaires.Granieri et al. studied the situation among youth through questionnaires to their caregivers.These studies contribute different knowledge and understandings depending on whose perspective is reflected in the data.This helps us to understand how different actors perceive and describe the phenomenon of school nonattendance.Understanding these perspectives is highly valuable in considering the consequences of, for example, bullying experiences (Granieri et al.), early-morning or late-nightness (Heine and S€ alzer), organizational structures in the school and support systems (Strandler and Harling; Sundelin et al.), and school policies (Enderle et al.) on absenteeism and how it can possibly be prevented and approached.

Terms and Theories Applied in Relation to Absenteeism
Theories and their inherent paradigms are closely connected to the understandings and approaches in the social sciences in general, and in comparative education in particular (Jules, 2021).Which paradigm we follow influences the methods we choose and the terms we employ.Disciplinary norms also shed light on the studies we conduct in international and comparative education.Absenteeism is a multidimensional phenomenon, and we did not prescribe one specific definition for the authors who submitted papers to this special issue.Heyne et al. (2019) not only distinguish between different types of school attendance problems such as school refusal, truancy, school withdrawal, and school exclusion, but also illustrate the breadth of terminology used in the international literature for different forms of absenteeism.Although we are aware of the importance of distinguishing between different forms of school absence with their multilayered backgrounds, our intention was not to limit authors in their studies.Absenteeism is defined in different ways in the articles.Enderle et al. recognize that many different terms are used to describe absence from school.In line with German education research traditions, they distinguish between school-aversive truancy, anxiety-based school refusal, and parent-condoned absence/withdrawal (Ricking & Speck, 2018).Taking into account culture-specific definitions of absenteeism is relevant when Enderle et al. look at how compulsory school attendance and absenteeism are defined in official documents.Strandler and Harling refer to "problematic school absenteeism", and rely on how this has been defined at the school they studied.They note that the students in question all had rates of absenteeism between 50 per cent and 100 per cent when they were selected for inclusion in the study.This means that the phenomenon studied here is on a very high level, whereby reintegration rather than prevention or (early) intervention can show results.Granieri et al. use the concept school refusal, which is to be understood as youth, according to their caregivers, refusing to go to school.Reasons mentioned behind the school refusal, according to the caregivers, are minor illness, serious health condition, sleep, bullying, mental health, teacher/work, and play.Sundelin et al. base their definition of absenteeism on the stories told by the students they interviewed in their study.Sundelin et al. looked at students who attended or would likely be referred to a remedial introduction programme in Swedish upper secondary education.The reason for looking at these students was that they had failed to complete their compulsory education and often had a history of problematic attendance.Heine and S€ alzer use the term truancy, basing it on how this has been measured in the PISA studies, but extend the concept not only to refer to the students' self-reported absenteeism from whole school days but to also include absenteeism from lessons and late arrival.It can be concluded that the use of different definitions of absenteeism in the articles reflects the use of terms related to school attendance problems found in the international research on absenteeism (Heyne et al., 2019) and that they need to be further defined and problematized (Havik & Ingul, 2021).
While all the articles take their starting point in research on school attendance, absenteeism, or preventive measures, we can note some differences in how explicitly the authors use theoretical approaches.Strandler and Harling look at their data through a neoinstitutional theoretical approach in order to analyze and compare different actors' institutional work with absenteeism.Sundelin et al. "focus on young people's own perspectives and sense-making through an interactionist approach where interpretations of norms, resources, and opportunities are both structured and contingent" and draw on sociological concepts such as careership and trajectory.Enderle et al. ground their study in a comprehensive overview of the concept of school absenteeism and related preventive measures in recent research.The quantitative approaches can be described as data-driven.Two articles are concerned with looking statistically at students with certain backgrounds.Granieri et al. looked specifically at neurodivergent youth, and found that two groups with high school refusal emerged: students with higher autistic and ADHD traits were at higher risk of absenteeism compared to the other groups.Heine and S€ alzer, interested in how students' chronotypes influence their attendance at and lateness to school, concluded that students who had to adjust their sleep habits to the socially defined schedules at school tended to have a higher degree of truancy than other students.To conclude, some of the articles are more data-or theory-driven, and in accordance with their respective research aim use empirical material to develop certain knowledge that can help us to understand school attendance, absenteeism, and preventive measures in different contexts.

Preventive Measures
What are the consequences of missing out on schooling, and what can be done to prevent school absenteeism?While none of the featured articles focuses explicitly on preventing school absenteeism, there are several indications of salutogenic strategies and solutions.Enderle et al. highlight the policy changes in one of the German federal states (Schleswig-Holstein) that they argue signalize a change in current German policies.According to the authors this new type of policy, focusing more on educational dimensions and school-wide measures than earlier policies in Germany, may provide better opportunities to reduce school absenteeism.Strandler and Harling point to a conflict between different actors concerning the purpose of preventive actions: Is the purpose to focus on students' well-being or knowledge development?Granieri et al. show that "externalizing symptoms, bullying victimization, and academic and social support needs should be considered within the context of the school setting, and providing needed supports may help to maintain school engagement".The consequences of absenteeism are specifically discussed in the article by Sundelin et al., who note that students with a history of problematic school attendance often fail to complete compulsory education and that these students are at risk of early school leaving and also run increased risks of weak connections to the labor market, poor health, and social vulnerability.Sundelin et al. argue that the students they interviewed consider the remedial introduction programme they attended "a positive alternative learning environment that may prevent school dropout and early school leaving by enabling school success and rebuilding students' self-confidence as learners and appreciated members of a school class".Finally, Heine and S€ alzer suggest that education policy-makers may need to rethink the tight structures of compulsory education that demand that students have lessons at school during the morning hours, regardless of their priorities or inner body clock.In relation to the preventive measures discussed in the articles, it can be noted that the only article that empirically presents results supporting the preventive measure discussed is the one by Sundelin et al.The others point to possible measures for prevention that, based on findings related to the affected groups of students and practices in schools, could be considered useful.This could be seen from the perspective raised by Kearney et al. (2023), in which they describe "changes in school attendance as early warning signals" (p. 1) that may help professionals to better see what actions to take in order to prevent absenteeism.Digging more deeply into questions of preventing school absenteeism and dropout, and how to build schools that apply healthy concepts of school attendance, is one of the tasks we can see for the future.

Dimensions of Comparison and Tasks for Future Research
The articles published in this special issue of European Education shed new light on school attendance, absenteeism, and prevention for counteracting related problems; but, as always, new insights also bring new questions.
In an international comparative perspective, it is of course always important to ask to what extent findings are country-and context-specific, and in what way they describe general context.Enderle et al. analyze the policies concerning absenteeism within Germany and what may be a new policy trend; it would be interesting to extend this analysis of legal and administrative documents to empirical studies on how a new approach would be practised in municipalities and schools.The article is interesting both as an example of the need to include intranational comparison in studies within the international and comparative field, and as it illustrates approaches to counteracting absenteeism that have been developed in a specific context with influence from the national and regional policies and practices.In the study of the policy documents in Germany, Enderle et al. identify an interesting dichotomy between punishment-oriented and more support-oriented measures.It seems reasonable to assume that the same dichotomy would be found in the policies of other countries, but it would certainly be interesting to know more about this from a comparative perspective, with policies in different countries also being compared.Another dichotomy, highlighted in the study by Strandler and Harling, concerns the general purpose of measures against absenteeism.Is the purpose students' well-being or their knowledge development?Strandler and Harling identify this dichotomy based on a case study, but there may be a more general conflict between different objectives in schools.It would also be interesting to research this dichotomy on a large scale.Do we find this conflict in other schools and other education systems?What types of balances can we find in education policies between these two potentially conflicting approaches?Generally, using a comparative approach to analyze absenteeism by comparing policies (Rui, 2014) in different countries and/or education systems may add relevant knowledge within the field of international and comparative education.Such an approach may also shed light on the extent to which there are different values (Wing-On & Mazon, 2014) in different education systems in relation to how absenteeism is defined and prevented.
There has been much discussion regarding certain student groups being more or less likely to miss out on part of their legal right to education through absenteeism (Arvidsson & Vesterberg, 2020).In the articles by Granieri et al. and Heine and S€ alzer, specific groups are identified as groups that may be absent from school more than other students.A great deal of research supports the notion that neurodivergent youth is a group that is at risk of being absent from school, but does this look the same in different countries?Generally, there seems to be a discussion in many countries about students' mental well-being, and there may be reasons to believe that this looks different in different countries.A specific approach to looking at well-being, neurodivergence, and absenteeism in an international comparative context could offer more knowledge about the factors behind this and possible approaches to supporting students.Heine and S€ alzer highlight an issue that has not been discussed much but that certainly deserves more attention: They found that it could be predicted that students in Germany who had to adjust their sleep habits to the socially defined schedules of their school would have a higher degree of truancy than other students.It seems likely that this could be a general problem all over the world, but it would be interesting to see how frequent it is and whether there are actually practices in various places by which school schedules are organized in other ways.Schools may be organized in such a way that attendance is made difficult because students do not receive the support they need.This could be further studied as a way of denying them their rights in education.
The issue of dropout, raised by Sundelin et al., has been observed in many international contexts, concerning both research and policy.This also raises the question of the trajectories for absent students.Does absenteeism eventually lead to dropout within compulsory education and in the transition from compulsory to upper secondary education?In their study using PISA data from 24 countries, Keppens and Spruyt (2018) suggested that education systems with an early differentiation had lower degrees of absenteeism than those in which differentiation took place later.In another study, also using PISA data, Fredriksson et al. (2023) compared Sweden and Germany, among other countries, and found no great differences in self-reported truancy between the countries despite differences in how the differentiation was organized.Generally, it seems to be of interest to learn more about the relationship between different education systems, truancy, and dropout.We also can see another research desideratum: While the studies published in this special issue all came from highly developed nations and school systems, it can be assumed that school systems that are still struggling with providing compulsory education for all students, boys and girls, in urban and rural districts, face problems beyond what is featured here.Not only might in-depth analysis from a comparative and international perspective find how issues related to absenteeism can differ among countries; it may also be relevant to consider whether certain problems are manifested as attendance problems to a lesser or greater degree within the contexts of different education systems.Investigating school attendance through a comparative perspective will help shed light on differences and similarities between the education systems in Europe and beyond.
In the above we have discussed further and future research in terms of comparisons between education systems, but it is also important to keep in mind that there are a number of other comparisons that can be made.It is interesting to compare the perspectives of different actors, as Strandler and Harling do in their article.Research on students' perspectives is discussed in the article by Sundelin et al., and on caregivers' perspectives in the one by Granieri et al., but these perspectives could of course also be used in relation to many of the other topics covered in the articles.Understanding, for example, children's perspectives or parents' experiences, or teachers' or other stakeholders' views, may contribute to new ways of understanding absenteeism and related problems (Warne et al., 2020).A historical dimension is covered to some extent by Enderle et al. in their identification of both present policies in the majority of policy documents from German federal states as well as what may be a policy change in one of the states.Historical analysis as a comparative approach (Sweeting, 2014) to analyzing policy development within and between countries may raise a number of interesting questions concerning school attendance and absenteeism, but also broader questions concerning school attendance as an aspect of the right to education.

Conclusion
With this special issue of European Education, our aim was to contribute to a better understanding of school attendance, absenteeism, and preventive measures in international and comparative research.We were interested in attracting qualitative and quantitative studies that could shed new light on attendance and absence, their backgrounds, and measures and policies for counteracting related problems.We believe that what we present to the readers in this special issue can meet these objectives.
The collected articles contribute to a number of relevant areas that could be further studied from a direct comparative perspective: � The perspectives of different actors-such as students, caregivers, teachers, other professionals, and policy-makers-on challenges and solutions related to school attendance.� Understanding different actors' focus on the role schooling plays in either learning or wellbeing, and the need to connect these dimensions.� Detangling the orientation of education policies between punishment for school absenteeism and support for students to be, and stay, in school.
One relevant question, of course, is whether and how we could follow up on such questions in more directly comparative studies.Would such comparisons, for example between countries, contribute further knowledge compared to studies in a specific context?We believe that such comparisons could place questions about absenteeism into a larger perspective.How are certain phenomena related to the respective school system, welfare state, and cultural context?Such questions, and a link to understanding "What works?", might provide knowledge and understanding that to date are scarce in the research on school attendance problems.