School absenteeism, emotional engagement and school organisation: an international comparative approach

ABSTRACT

This article aims to provide knowledge on the effects of the social composition of schools and the mediating effect of emotional engagement on school absenteeism, from a comparative perspective and using a multilevel methodology. The comparative dimension of the analyses allows us to study whether there is a school effect on absenteeism and whether this differs according to organisational structures. For this purpose, three cities with three different models were considered. Data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY) were used. Data were collected in three cities Barcelona (Spain), Ghent (Belgium) and Bergen (Norway), with a total sample of N = 6557 pupils in 82 schools. The results show, first, that absenteeism varies between cities and schools according to the model of school organisation. They also revealed the importance of instrumental and expressive student identification as prevention of absenteeism at the individual level. Finally, results reported that a high emotional engagement of pupils can contribute to reducing the effect of the social composition of the school on absenteeism.

KEYWORDS:

• School absenteeism
• multilevel analysis
• emotional engagement
• educational systems
• school tracking

Acknowledgements

Study funded under the Plan Nacional I+D (reference CSO2016- 79945-P) as part of an international research project comparing the educational and employment trajectories of young people (www.iscy.org). We are grateful for the support of the Consorci d'Educació de Barcelona and the Consell Superior d'Evaluació del Sistema Educatiu de Catalunya, without whom this research would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maribel Garcia-Gracia

Maribel Garcia-Gràcia is professor in the Department of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her research is carried out within de framework of GRET, a research group in the Department of Sociology, of which she has been a member since 1991. She focuses her research on the impact of social inequalities on post-compulsory transitions, the phenomena of school dropout and absenteeism, and second chance programmes.

Ona Valls

Ona Valls is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Childhood and Youth Research at the University of Luxembourg. Her research interests focus on educational inequalities, educational and employment trajectories, school-to-work transitions, life course studies, and quantitative methods.