Mechanisms For Preventing Unexcused Absence Of Students In General Secondary Schools

Abstract

 The article establishes the mechanisms by which unexcused absence of students in general secondary schools may be prevented. The author proceeds from the thesis that the category of unexcused absence is administrative rather than explanatory: it records the fact that the school did not receive or did not accept a justification, and says nothing whatever about the cause of the absence, since every absence has a cause and only some causes are documented. The consequence of treating an administrative category as a causal one is that a heterogeneous population receives a uniform response — ordinarily a sanction — which is appropriate to at most one of the conditions it contains and counterproductive in several. Employing the comparative-analytical, systemic and structural-functional methods, the study constructs a functional typology of unexcused absence comprising five types distinguished by the mechanism that produces them, drawing upon the interdisciplinary model of C. Kearney, the participation–identification model of J. Finn, the social bonding theory of T. Hirschi, the theory of self-efficacy of A. Bandura and the conception of basic psychological needs of E. Deci and R. Ryan. Differentiated preventive mechanisms are established for each type, together with the early-warning indicators preceding absence and the institutional risks of the preventive apparatus itself.