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Abstract
This paper suggests that rather than criminalising or pathologising truancy as a “deviant” behaviour in need of either treatment or punishment, truancy should be considered as a rational enactment of dissatisfaction with State educational provision. It should be of little surprise that attempts to “solve” the truancy “problem” by recourse to coercion or legal action have proved ineffective. Indeed, such practices may exacerbate rather that ameliorate the truancy and exclusion “problem”. While attempts to improve staff–student relations, curriculum relevance and the school environment may prove beneficial in encouraging some absentees to return to school, further attention should be paid to alternative educational provision, and in particular to raising the awareness among staff, students and parents of the legality and potential benefits home education may offer for persistent school refusers.
Notes
1. For the purposes of this paper, and because of the impossibility of dedicating sufficient space herein for a full discussion of the semantics of the various terms used to define unauthorised absences from school, this paper shall employ the terms truancy, absenteeism and non‐attendance interchangeably to indicate routine, pupil and/or parent initiated “unauthorised” absences from school, rather than one off, infrequent, or in‐term holiday absences
2. No page numbering is provided in Gabb's document.
3. Around 400,000 children miss school daily, up to 50,000 with parental consent (Reid Citation2005). According to Zhang (Citation2004), attendance levels have remained relatively static for a considerable amount of time. In Leeds, for instance, the level of school attendance in 2001 is exactly the same as it was in 1870: 89%. Boyle and Goodall, from New Philanthropy Capital (Citation2005) also note that truancy levels have been constant since 1997.
4. According to New Philanthropy Capital (2005), permanent exclusions have risen by 20% since 2000.
5. In real terms this amounts to 225,000 students missing 38 days of schooling in one school year.
6. 1944 Education Act (Office of Public Sector Information 1944).
7. “No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions”. European Convention on Human Rights, Article 2, first Protocol (1951).
8. Section seven of the Education Act 1996 (UK Parliament 1996).
9. Home education has grown at a rate of 776% in 18 years in Canada (Hepburn and Basham Citation2001); 20% per year in Australia (Hunter Citation1994); between 11–40% in the United States, (Ray Citation2000); 39% in 2005–6 (when statistics stared to be collected|) and between 0.3 and 1% of children are believed currently to be home educated in Britain (Meighan Citation1997; Nilsson Citation2004; Fortune Wood Citation2005).
10. Dyson, A. (Citation2005) “Philosophy, politics and economics? The story of inclusive education in England 2005” in D. Mitchell (ed.) Contextualising inclusive education: Evaluating old and new international perspectives. Routledge: London.
11. An Education Otherwise research study found that 13% of home educating questionnaire respondents had chosen to home educate because of special needs (2003). Rothermel (Citation2002) found that 22.54% of the home educated children in her research sample possessed special educational needs, with families citing both mismanagement of special educational needs (19.87%) and an inability of schools to make adequate gifted provision to be motivating factors in their decision to home educate.
12. Burks, Jensen, and Terman (Citation1930) noted, “The child of 180 IQ has one of the most difficult problems of social adjustment that any human being is ever called upon to meet” (1930, 265)
13. According to Education Otherwise (2003) 22% of parents who had been motivated to withdraw their child from school indicated that bullying – by children or by staff – led to their decision, whilst 17% suggested that one reason was school phobia. Rothermel (Education Otherwise 2002–3) reported that 25% of her research sample cited bullying as the reason for deciding to home educate and 16.4% “child sickness, stress, exhaustion, depression”.