Date of Award

Summer 8-4-2025

Access Restriction

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctorate in Education

Department

Education

School or College

School of Education

First Advisor

Mary McCullough

Second Advisor

Manuel Ponce

Third Advisor

Neil Quinly

Abstract

Understanding and Addressing Chronic Absenteeism: Interviewing Parents of Chronically Absent Students The more any child is chronically absent from school, opportunities dwindle for growth academically, intellectually, and socially (Gottfried, 2014). The problem is finding long term solutions to chronic absenteeism. A large percentage of chronically absent students are from the marginalized Black and Latinx student groups, creating a dire social justice situation for those students and their communities (Allison et al., 2019). This purpose of this qualitative study was to find reasons for and suggestions to address the wicked problem of chronic absenteeism by interviewing parents of chronically absent students. The researcher interviewed parents using semi-structured questions allowing parents to elaborate on their responses to interview questions. The interview questions were based on Childs and Lofton’s (2021) components of the “black box” of chronic absenteeism- student wellbeing, family dynamics, school environment, neighborhood, poverty. Parent responses were coded into one of the five components in relation to reasons and suggestions to address chronic absenteeism. The main findings of the reasons for chronic absenteeism found parents interviewed were dealing with student wellbeing and school environment as reasons for absences. For suggestions to address chronic absenteeism, the study found parents believed that an engaging and caring school environment was vital for making kids want to attend school. The findings supported the idea that meeting with parents and engaging in discussion with them will help solve the problem of chronic absenteeism.

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