Dr.Damanjit Sandhu
Senior Lecturer
Department of Psychology
Punjabi University, Patiala, INDIA
The picture ‘THE
TRUANT’ by Thomas
Webster, British artist
1800-1886.
A snap shot at the history of
truancy .
 This picture is nearly 170 yrs old which describes two
young children running away from school standing
outside their classrooms anxiously looking at the
activities inside.
 Shows that the concept of truancy has been present
historically and it is not a new concept.
 ‘Truancy in Adolescence” attaches with it various kinds
of activities while away from school. In this regard,
Kline has linked truancy and running away, with man’s
roving instincts, linking it to the migratory instincts of
animals and birds.
 In India, the education history shows a notorious character
for its lack of social inclusiveness.
 Till the 19th century AD, education was largely considered a
privilege restricted to persons at the higher end of the caste
and class spectrum. In the ancient and medieval India
education was a privilege available only to a chosen few.
 It was in 2008 in India that the Indian parliament had
passed the historic ‘right of children to free & compulsory
education bill 2008’ which envisages providing free and
compulsory education to 6 to 14 yrs old children.
From the time of compulsory education, truancy has
also been a problem as many youngsters are not
willing to attend school regularly for one reason or
another (Van Breda, 2006).
In the list of education for all (EFA) development index,
among 125 countries, India ranks 99th, even though
there have been reduction in the number of out of
school children since 2004.
WHAT IS TRUANCY?
 Deliberate absence from school on the part of the
learner without the knowledge and consent of the
parent or absence of a learner from school for which
no reasonable or acceptable excuse is given.(Kee,2001)
 Stoll (1990) defines truancy as ‘absence from school for
no legitimate reason’.
 Whitney (1994) defines truancy as absence that has
not been authorised by the school and where leave has
not been given or approved.
 However, Robins and Ratcliff (1980) adopt a less
restrictive definition by referring to truancy as
'absence from school without an acceptable reason,
whether or not the parents know and approve.
 Much of research on truancy has centered on areas like
children at risk for truancy, truancy as a predictor for
future delinquent and criminal activity , absence from
school, factors leading to truancy but little research is
done with a focus on the reasons given by youth as to
why they are truant .
 At the same time it is important to identify truancy
during the adolescent period itself as it has both
immediate consequences and long term consequences,
such as reduced academic achievement because
students have more limited opportunities for learning
when they are absent from class.
 Truancy stems from a broad range of factors and is a
serious problem for schools leading to a negative set of
circumstances.
 Truancy can be considered to be a multidimensional
experience and where each case is unique with the
combination of various social, psychological, and
institutional factors contributing to the learner’s
truant behaviour.
 ‘truancy is not the problem but an indicator of other
problems’.
Slang
expressions
 South Africa- bunking, skipping or jippo.
 New Zealand and Australia - wagging, "jigging", ditching,





or skipping school.
United
Kingdom
and
Indiabunking
(off) or skiving or wagging
Wales- sagging.
Liverpool- bunking or cutting class, doggin, skiving, playing
tickie or puggin.
United
States
and
Canada
hookey,
playing
hookey, ditching, dipping, jigging, sluffing, skipping, cutting
class, or simply just cutting.
Newfoundland and Labrador- "pipping off", and truant
students are described as being "on the pip".
 Singapore and Malaysia Pakistan bunking.
fly
A combination of family, school, peer, individual
factors may be involved (Reid 1999).
 Truancy is not an individual issue,but an indicator of
family problems & unmet physical ,psychosocial,
academic needs (Baker, Sigmon&Nugent 2001)
FAMILY FACTORS
 Violence at home or
around
 Substance use/abuse at
home
 Lack of parental
involvement
 Poor living conditions
 Sibling rivalry
 Family disorganization
 Lack of parental
disciplinary practices
 Physical abuse or neglect
 Lack of family support for
education & other goals.
 Lack of physical
room/space
 Single parent households
 Poverty
 Parents with low
educational achievements
SCHOOL FACTORS
 Poor student –teacher
 Ineffective teaching
relationship
 Unsafe school
environment
 Poor school discipline
 Overcrowded classrooms
 Avoidance of
tests/assignments
 Finding school boring
methods
 Physical manhandling by
teachers
 Inconsistent& ineffective
school attendance
policies
PEER FACTORS
 Bullying
 Social isolation by peers
 Peer pressure to bunk
 Loneliness
 Poor relationship with
fellow students
 Problem in making
friends
 Peer rejection
INDIVIDUAL FACTORS
 Poor self-esteem
 Less satisfactory
 Feelings of academic
incompetence
 Unmet mental health
needs
 Lack of personal
ambition
 Low school achievement
 Gang involvement




experiences at school
Curiosity to bunk
Moodiness
Lack of social skills
Feeling of thrill
 Truancy in adolescence is commonly becoming a
problem in today’s society .
 Communities with high rates of truancy are likely to
have correspondingly high rates of daytime criminal
activity.
 In the long term, the poorer educational and
occupational attainment of formerly truant students is
likely to increase their risk for adult criminality and
incarceration.
 When truancy leads to school failure or dropping out
of school, youth are also likely to experience higher
rates of unintended pregnancies, greater instability in
career paths, higher rates of unemployment, and lower
lifetime earnings.
 Early truancy is found to contribute to juvenile
delinquency(Garry 1996), substance use, abuse, in
adolescents & adulthood, early sexual behaviour &
teen pregnancy (Halfors et al 2002)
 Truant youth have also been found to be involved in
criminal acts such as burglary, auto theft and
vandalism.
HEALTH-RISK BEHAVIOURS
Behaviours that increase the likelihood of adverse
physical, social, and psychological consequences.
Healthy risk-taking has been viewed as a positive tool in
adolescents’ life for discovering, developing and
consolidating his or her identity.
However as the frequency and intensity of risk-taking
increases , risk-taking no longer serves as a positive
developmental purpose and becomes problematic.
HEALTH-RISK BEHAVIOURS IN
ADOLESCENCE
 Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
has identified six health-risk behaviours:
 (1) behaviours that contribute to unintentional
injuries and violence
 (2) alcohol and other drug use
 (3) tobacco use
 (4) irresponsible sexual behaviour
 (5) unhealthy dietary behaviour
 (6) physical inactivity
 Adolescent risk taking behaviour is important not
simply because it may lead to illness or death but
because it can severely compromise a young person's
mastery of normal developmental tasks and ability to
fulfil social roles.
 For example, alcohol and other drug use may lead to
withdrawal from school, thereby restricting future
opportunities for education and employment .
Adolescents purposely seek out risky behaviours as they believe
that such behaviours permit them to

 take control of their own lives;
 to express possible opposition to adult authority and
conventional society;
 to help them to deal with feelings of anxiety, frustration,
inadequacy and failure;
 to help gain acceptance with peers and to help demonstrate
identification with a youth subculture;
 to confirm their personal identity;
to affirm maturity, thus marking their transition into young
adulthood.
Risk taking behaviours that include alcohol,
tobacco, and drug use show a connection
with truancy.
Truants are more likely to engage in risky
behaviours such as drug use, alcohol use .
Halfors et al. (2002) found that truant
students were seven times more likely to
report marijuana use than students without
truancy issues.
 Moreover, early truancy has also been found to
contribute to early sexual behaviour, and teen
pregnancy (Halfors, Vevea, Iritani, Cho, &
Khatapousch, 2002).
 India has the largest population of adolescents in the
world being home to 243 million individuals aged 10-19
years. The country's adolescents constituted 20 per
cent of the world's 1.2 billion adolescents.
 Nine out of ten among the 1.2 billion adolescents live
in the developing world. "In this `youthful, human
resource' lies the promise and potential of becoming a
healthy, strong and egalitarian society.
 The primary purpose of the research was to look
within the two patterns of adolescent behaviour,
‘truancy and risk taking behaviours’ and understand
its occurrence and involvement by the adolescents.
NEED OF THE STUDY
It will be beneficial to understand the underlying
reasons which play an important role in the life of
truants and the information obtained from this
research will extend our knowledge of the phenomena
of truancy. The factors will be useful in strategizing
measures at school & community level to curb truancy.
 This survey will uncover silent causes behind the
problem and help in averting multiple adverse
outcomes. This study may help explain and advance
educator’s understanding of truant behaviour by
bridging the gap between existing causal factors and
new discoveries from this study and it will help unlock
some unknown factors about school truancy and risk
taking behaviours.
OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH
 To identify truants from non truants.
 To study gender differences in incidence of truancy.
 To study the time utilization of the truant boys and girls .
 To study differences between truants and non truants on
family, school, peer, and individual factors .
 To study the differences in risk taking behaviours of truants
and non truants.
HYPOTHESIS
 1. Incidence of truancy would be higher in boys as
compared to girls.
 2. Boys and girls would differ in their time utilization
while playing truants from school.
 3.Truants will be significantly higher than non-truants
on adverse family, school, peer and individual factors.
 4. Truants will be significantly higher than nontruants on Risk –Taking Behaviours.
SAMPLE
 For the purpose of this research, six hundred and fifty,
15 yrs to 17 yrs old learners from private and govt.
schools in Chandigarh, Panchkula & Zirakpur of both
genders ( equal number) were surveyed on the truancy
measure.
 Out of those 650, 150 truants were identified (100 boys
& 50 girls) and further studied.
 These 150 truants were included and matched on age,
gender, school enrollment and SES with one hundred
and fifty non truants .
 Thus, total sample included is 300 school learners.
TRUANCY CRITERIA
 The Truancy Criteria that had to be answered i.e.
“during the past 30 days have you missed your school
or classes without the permission from your parents or
school” (GSHS, dev by WHO, c.f Siziya, Muula &
Rudatsikira, 2007).
 This question was to be answered in a ‘yes or no’ and if
the learner responded to a ‘yes’ response, the number
of days was required to be mentioned.
TIME UTILIZATION MEASURE
 The Time Utilization Measure was developed that
assessed the engagement of activities by the truant
learners when they bunk school or classes.
 The learners had to tick on a given set of activities
(could be more than one) they remained engaged in
while playing truant from school and could also write
down (open ended question) in case their activity was
not mentioned in the list, the way they spend their
time when not in school.
 The items were going to sit in the park with friend, go
to friends home, loitering in streets, play games in
park, hanging out in shopping malls, do odd jobs,
baby sit younger siblings, watch movies, visit relatives,
attend parties, something more important to do.
FAMILY FACTORS
The Family Factor Measure which was developed focuses
on the factors related to the learner’s family
There are 10 items in this section which were to be
answered in a ‘yes or no’ response.
The items included in this section are based on factors
related to family which are likely to contribute to
truancy and are derived from the literature study.
 High scores reflect adverse family conditions. The
family factors include the following aspects (domestic
violence, abuse and neglect, parental alcoholism, lack
of physical space in the house, lack of parental
involvement, ineffective disciplinary practices, lack of
family time and concern by family members,
problematic familial relationships, sibling rivalry,
unsupportive family).
SCHOOL FACTORS
 The School Factor Measure developed focuses on the
school factors related to the adolescents
 There are 10 items in this section which were to be
answered in a ‘yes or no’ response.
 The items included in this section are based on factors
related to school which are likely to contribute to
truancy and are derived from the literature study.
 High scores reflect adverse school related problems.
The school factors included are (school safety,
ineffective teaching methods, boredom, poor student teacher relationship, opportunism, faulty school
discipline, avoidance of tests and assignments, poor
school performance, overcrowded classrooms, physical
manhandling by teachers).
PEER FACTORS MEASURE
 Focuses on the factors related to the peer groups of
adolescents.
 There are 8 items in this section which were to be
answered in a ‘yes or no’ response.
 High scores indicate peer related problems.
 The peer factors included are (lack of friends, poor
relationship with fellow students and friends, problem
getting along with friends, feeling of loneliness, peer
pressure to bunk, teasing and humiliation by friends,
social isolation by unfriending and bullying).
INDIVIDUAL FACTOR MEASURE
 Focuses on the factors related to the self
 There are 10 items in this section which were to be
answered in a ‘yes or no’ response.
 High scores indicate problems at the individual level.
The individual factors included are (lack of
motivation, lack of willingness to learn, curiosity, poor
social skills, lack of confidence and low self esteem,
moodiness,
learning
problems,
academic
incompetence, feeling of thrill, non-interest in
school).
Youth Risk Behaviour Survey (YRBS)
YRBS was developed in 1999 by the Centre for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), aimed to establish the
learner’s risk taking behaviours in the area of
behaviours related to Behaviours related to
unintentional
injuries
and
violence,
Sexual
behaviours, Tobacco use behaviours, Alcohol and
other drug use behaviours. There are total 42 items in
this section where the learners had to respond in a ‘yes
or no’ response.
PILOT STUDY
 The research instrument (Family factor, School factor,
Peer Factor and Individual factor survey) was
personally designed and has not been used for any
other study so far, so there was a need for pre-testing
to establish clarity and the appropriateness of the
questionnaire items. During the pre- testing of the
questionnaire, the following procedure was followed.

 A pre-testing of the instrument was done on 30 school
learners belonging to the age group of 15 yrs to 17 yrs
(not included in the sample). The test-retest reliability
of the questionnaire was checked over a span of 30
days which came out to be quite satisfactory. The testretest reliability was 0.75 for family factors, 0.78 for
school factors, 0.76 for peer factors and 0.75 for
individual factors. The values indicate the reliability of
the instrument as satisfactory.
To determine the validity of the questionnaire
instrument, the questionnaire was given to experts and
their colleagues to determine content validity, where
experts checked whether the items represent the
construct which is being studied as well as the
wording, formatting and scoring of the instrument.
Also, the truancy reported by the adolescents was
validated against the teachers’ reports of the same.
 To test the reliability of YRBS questionnaire ,the test-
retest reliability was also carried out with N=30 over a
30 days period and it came out to be 0.81.
INCIDENCE OF TRUANCY
TOTAL
SAMPLE
TRUANTS
FREQUEN
CY
PERCENTAGE
OF TRUANTS
325 boys
100
100
15.38%
325 girls
50
50
7.69%
650
150
23%
TABLE Showing the frequency and percentage of the time
utilization activities by truant boys and girls.
TABLE : GROUP DIFFERENCES
BASED ON VARIOUS FACTORS
MAJOR FINDINGS
 The total students surveyed were 650 . The total
incidence of truants emerged to be 23% out of which
15.38% were truant boys and 7.69% were truant girls.
 The results revealed a significantly higher incidence of
truancy among boys than girls.
 The most preferred activity for boys & girls is
‘watching movies’ followed by ‘hanging around
shopping malls’ for boys and ‘going to friends place’ for
girls as the second most preferred activity and the
third most frequented activity is ‘attending parties’ for
boys for girls it is ‘hanging around in malls and
markets’.
 Both truant boys and truant girls have shown high
significant differences than their non-truant
counterparts on four domains: family factors, school
factors, peer factors and individual factors.
 The results also show a significantly higher
involvement of truant boys in Risk Taking Behaviours
such as Behaviours related to unintentional injuries
and violence, sexual behaviours, tobacco use
behaviours and alcohol & other drug use behaviours in
comparison to non-truant boys.
 The findings also indicate that risk taking behaviours
are significantly higher amongst the truant girls than
non- truant girls in all areas , except tobacco use
behaviours, which has shown high means but no
significant difference.
LIMITATIONS
 The research group which has been taken from few schools
constitute the sample. As a result the findings of this study
may have the generalizability limitation due to its small
sample size as more schools, students and grades could be
added to the research.
 Furthermore , the students who were absent from school
at the time of data collection could not be included. The
survey was completed by students on a self report basis, the
honest portrayal of responses on survey items could be a
matter of concern as it was a school based setting, where
the presence of teachers could have potentially interfered
with their responses.

THANKS