Who Are Truant Youth? Examining Distinctive Profiles of Truant Youth Using Latent Profile Analysis

Abstract

The present study explored the heterogeneity of truant youth to provide a more nuanced examination of the nature of adolescent truancy and examine distinct profiles of truant youth as they relate to externalizing behaviors. Latent profile analysis was employed to examine the heterogeneity of truant youth by using a nationally representative sample of 1,646 truant adolescents (49.8 % female) from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Five key indicator variables were utilized to identify latent classes: school engagement, participation in school-based activities, grades, parental academic involvement, and number of school days skipped. Additionally, multinomial regression was employed to examine the relationship between latent truant youth classes and externalizing behaviors. Four classes of truant youth were identified: achievers (28.55 %), moderate students (24.30 %), academically disengaged (40.89 %), and chronic skippers (6.26 %). Additionally, group membership was found to be associated differentially with marijuana use, fighting, theft and selling drugs. Results from the present study suggest that truant youth are not a homogenous group, but rather present with different risk profiles as they relate to key indicators, demographic characteristics and externalizing behaviors. Implications for practice, policy and future research are discussed.

Student behavioral engagement as a mediator between teacher, family, and peer support and school truancy

“…This combination is problematic as students who are inattentive and come unprepared to classes may not play truant (see Betts, 2012). Engagement studies typically examine student cognitive functioning outcomes such as academic achievement (e.g., Furrer & Skinner, 2003;Skinner & Pitzer, 2012) or school completion (Archambault et al, 2009) but school truancy and academic achievement are not necessarily associated in a linear fashion as some truant youth do well academically (Maynard, Salas-Wright, Vaughn, & Peters, 2012).…”

“…Respectively, students reporting low participation in school activities have been found to report high rates of skipping school (Maynard et al, 2012). The association between self-reported low behavioral engagement and skipping school is high, especially among 10-to 16-year-old urban minority youth (Connell, Spencer, & Aber, 1994).…”

School Truancy: Poor School Attenders’ Perceptions of the Impact Regarding Dysfunctional Teacher-Learner Relationships on Truant Behaviour

“…Interestingly, emerging from the strong corpus of literature on school absence and truancy, it does appear that the circumstances and causal factors leading to this behaviour have changed and become incrementally complex over the past two to three decade (Maynard, Salas-Wright, Vaughan and Peters, 2012;Reid, 2010). Growing consensus exists whereby factors and circumstances which lead to learners missing school seem to depend on the age and personal circumstances of individual learners.…”

Present absences : Exploring the posthumanist entanglements of school absenteeism

“…They could be described as part of a common strand within research on school absenteeism: larger scale studies focusing on identifying at-risk groups (Ekstrand 2015). Other examples are Maynard et al (2012) with data from a national survey of drug use and health in the United States, and Harakeh et al (2012) focusing on Dutch adolescents.…”

“…These analytical findings are crucial in questioning dominant understandings of school absenteeism. Even though school absenteeism, non-attendance and truancy have been described as a multi-faceted problem (Reid 1999;Corville-Smith et al 1998;Weinberg & Weinberg 1992), the focus on individual characteristics and individually related factors in many of the published studies I have reviewed highlights absenteeism as an exception connected to risk-groups (Karlberg & Sundell 2004;Maynard et al 2012;Sundell, El-Khouri & Månsson 2005) or to individual behaviours such as over-anxiety, psychosocial problems and so on (Witts & Houlihan 2007). When the responsibility for absences is understood as located within the individual, the complexities of the phenomenon become difficult to address, as shown in this study.…”