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.

Acknowledgment

We want to extend our sincere thanks to the editors of the journal, all anonymous reviewers and the members in our research project who generously supported us with advice during our work with this issue.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Vetenskapsrådet [2019-04639].

Notes on contributors

Susanne Kreitz-Sandberg

Susanne Kreitz-Sandberg is Associate Professor in International and Comparative Education, a field she has been working in since the 1990s. Presently Susanne is leading a project funded by the Swedish Research Council “International Comparative Perspectives on School Attendance Problems”. Other research interests are Gender inclusion in higher education, Multi-professional collaboration in schools and Youth in comparative perspectives.

Ulf Fredriksson

Ulf Fredriksson is an Associate Professor of Education at the Department of Education, Stockholm University. His research has focused on reading, students of immigrant background, learning to learn, the use of ICT in schools and comparative and international education. He has participated in several studies of students reading skills in different municipalities and in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). Recently he has studied how PISA-data can be used to find international comparable data on school attendance problems.