School refusal is a common problem among students. It is not the same as skipping school, on the contrary. Where truants choose to do something more fun instead of attending classes, such as going into town, school refusers stay at home because they no longer dare to go to school. Parents are often aware of the school refusal, but do not intervene. This article provides explanations for this problem based on individual and environmental factors.
Individual factors
There are numerous internal factors that may indirectly underlie later school refusal, starting with temperament. A child’s temperament concerns basic personality traits, such as extroversion and introversion, that are expressed at an early age. For example, an introverted child runs the risk of becoming socially isolated, making him an easy target for bullying and therefore no longer daring to go to school. The same can apply to a negative self-image or low self-confidence. In addition, the child may not be able to deal well with social problems. If the child bottles up emotional problems, a solution to the problem is far away. Possible learning problems can also contribute to school refusal. The child may be bullied because of his academic skills or may not dare to go to school out of shame. Because of the bullying, an anxiety disorder may develop in the child, causing the child to avoid social situations. This is a factor that can maintain school refusal, because the child is afraid of the social environment at school.
Familial factors
Hereditary factors within the family influence individual factors, especially if anxiety and depression run in family circles. Family history can also play a role in school refusal. In both cases that Kawabata (2001) mentions in his article, family members have gone through the same thing that the child is going through now. They project this onto the child who is affected by this. The relationship between the parents and the child is also important. In both cases it is striking that there is hardly any bond between the father and the child. In both cases the relationship with the mother can be called ambivalent and the (grand)mother protects the child too much. In addition, the mutual relationship between the parents is important. If this relationship is poor and especially when the parents are divorced, this has an influence on the child. Another problem is the lack of communication, which is especially evident in the first case. For fear of Due to the reaction of the (grand)father, the problem was kept silent, resulting in no solutions. This is a shame, because in this way the causes are not tackled and the problem is perpetuated.
School factors
A change of school is drastic and in both cases the children had difficulty adapting to the new environment. Both had few social contacts at school to rely on and were also bullied. In Inamura’s (1994, as described in Kawabata, 2001) study, 20% of school refusers cited social relationships and 50% bullying as reasons why they no longer go to school. In other words, these are two causal and direct influences on school refusal. After all, if the child were not being bullied, the child would probably continue to go to school. Another factor that Kawabata (2001) mentions in his article is social exclusion, where the entire class completely ignores the child, with all its consequences. The way in which the school notices and deals with bullying is important to prevent bullying. For example, if teachers do nothing, the child also feels abandoned by them.
Community factors
In addition to the family and the school, it is also important in which community the child grows up. In the literature, a distinction is often made between Western and Eastern cultures in relation to the importance of social relationships. In Eastern cultures, such as Japan, social expectations are high and the importance of social relationships is vital to the individual’s self-esteem. In addition, homogeneity is highly valued in Japan. Any person who avoids this risks social exclusion.
Conclusion
School refusers are emotionally very upset and feel unwell and anxious at the thought of school. They withdraw from school for a long period of time and then stay at home. Predispositions, such as temperament or hereditary factors within the family, indirectly influence school refusal, because this predisposition makes the child vulnerable to dealing with social problems. In addition, there are also factors that maintain school refusal, such as bottling up problems, a lack of communication or the development of an anxiety disorder, which means that there is no solution to the child’s social problems. Bullying or social exclusion of the child directly influences the reason why the child no longer goes to school. At the same time, it has become clear that these direct causes are only the tip of the iceberg and that it is first and foremost important to tackle the indirect family circumstances that have made the child vulnerable to later social problems. In this respect, the outcome of both cases in the article by Kawabata (2001) offers a hopeful perspective.