In 1998, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Executive Office for Weed and Seed, and the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools began collaborating on a broad-based initiative, the Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program (TRDP), intended to enhance our understanding of the nature and prevention of truant behavior among youth. According to the evaluation of the TRDP, the correlates of truancy fall into the following categories:

• School factors include issues related to the overall school climate, such as safety issues (e.g., bullying, gangs), school size, and attitudes of administrators, teachers, and other students, as well as the degree to which schools are flexible in meeting students' diverse cultural and learning styles. Another critical factor is the presence and consistent enforcement of clear procedures, with meaningful consequences, for dealing with truancy among students.

• Family factors include lack of parent supervision and/or guidance, poverty, substance abuse in the home, domestic violence or other familial conflicts, lack of familiarity with school attendance laws, and varied education priorities.

• Economic factors include employment among students as well as students who live in single-parent households, have parents with multiple jobs, and whose families lack affordable transportation and/or childcare.

• Student factors include substance use, limited social and emotional competence, mental health problems, poor physical health, lack of familiarity with school attendance laws, teen pregnancy, and friends who are engaging in truant or other problem behavior.

Rather than comprising a fifth category, community variables -- which are clearly important when looking at the problem of truancy among youth -- are reflected throughout the four categories above. For example, economic conditions and culturally based attitudes toward education (mentioned under family factors) could easily be considered community-related variables.

From:

Baker, M. L., Sigmon, J. N., & Nugent, M. E. (September 2001). Truancy reduction: Keeping students in school. Juvenile Justice Bulletin. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Available on-line at: http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_9_1/contents.html.