‘School – no thanks – it ain't my thing’: accounts for truancy. Students' perspectives on their truancy and school lives
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: This study is an interview-based investigation of 15 students with unexcused absences in the last school year in Swedish compulsory school. The aim is to explore students' descriptive perspectives on truancy, school life and their own futures. The interviews are analysed as presentations of accounts within symbolic interaction. The students account a variety of excuses or justifications, including internal justifications, such as ‘I didn't understand’, and external justifications, such as ‘My dad is sick’. Examples of motivations for truancy include boredom (justifying internal excuses) and bullying (justifying external excuses). Most of the excuses seem to connect to the school atmosphere. All students except one indicate that they dislike school and all students except three have relationship problems with peers and teachers. These three students display a change or ‘turning point’ from truant behaviour to continual school attendance and from exclusion to inclusion.
Author: Anne-Sofie M. Strand
Institution: Jönköping University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2126205116