School attendance problems (SAPs) are heterogeneous with respect to etiology and presentation. The long history of conceptualizing SAPs has led to a vast array of terms and definitions as well as different perspectives on the most helpful approach to classification. For educators, practitioners, researchers, and policymakers, this presents a challenge in understanding, assessing, and intervening with SAPs. This paper outlines evolution in the conceptualization of SAPs, focusing on two contemporary approaches to differentiating between them. One approach draws on the longstanding differentiation between SAP types labeled school refusal, truancy, and school withdrawal. A fourth type of SAP, labeled school exclusion, is also considered. The other approach focuses on the function of absenteeism, measured via the School Refusal Assessment Scale (SRAS). Anecdotal and scientific support for the SAP typology is presented, along with the benefits and shortcomings of the SRAS approach to differentiation. The paper offers suggestions for how to differentiate between SAPs and introduces the SNACK, a brief screening measure that permits differentiation by SAP type.

There is no shortage of definitions for truancy. One state may house many different definitions and there are a variety of challenges arising from this fact. One of the most important to researchers, policy makers, and educators alike, is that because of the lack of uniformly and consistency, it is difficult to compile and ascertain the totality of the phenomenon. The lack of a consistent definition influences a wide range of outcomes including policy matters, financial resources and definitive responses and intervention strategies. This manuscript attempts to synthesize the literature through the examination of operational definitions of truancy in the US and in other territories. In addition to these operational definitions, expert opinions from focus groups proposed an enhanced definition of truancy. The study is qualitative and uses focus groups and synthesis of the literature to frame the work. Findings are presented. The goal is to synthesize the literature, not in its entirety, but in an attempt to combine and inform the conversation on a definition of truancy, despite initially seeming to be somewhat unachievable.

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