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The pupils of Bangladeshi origin in Westminster have been identified as one of the lowest attending ethnic groups. However, so far, no specific academic study had been conducted to examine the underlying causes of absenteeism among them. Therefore, this study, qualitative in nature, set out to identify the most common factors contributing to absenteeism amongst the focus group who represented one in every ten pupil-population of the borough. Cross-sectional examination of the perceptually developed hypotheses was mainly carried out in five primary schools and one secondary school, located in different geographical areas of the Westminster Local Education Authority. The sample included 140 pupils (100 primary and 40 secondary), most of their parents guardians, head teachers, teachers, home-school liaison workers, community leaders/workers, Westminster Education Welfare Officers, LEA Officers and Attendance Advisor at DjES. Semi-structured interview and questionnaire schedules were used as the main tools for data generation. The findings of the study suggested that poor health was the most prevalent reason for low attendance among the focus group, followed by extended holidays which resulted in considerable numbers of absences -both authorised and unauthorised. Family poverty did not evidently appear to.be a causal explanatory issue for poor health and low attendance of the pupils. An overwhelming majority of the pupils, particularly primary girls, showed positive attitudes towards education and schools too. Female education was receiving increasingly positive support from the Bangladeshi parents. A sizeable number of unauthorised absences of both primary and secondary pupils were also referred to system or registration procedural errors. However, no cultural, racial or religious concerns were cited as reasons for absenteeism. The study strongly recommended an immediate clinical investigation into the causes of the high incidence of health vulnerability among the focus group.

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The traditional view is that truants are juvenile delinquents. Getting an education is regarded a an unquestionable good in society. and students who absent themselves from school are often labeled as irresponsible, lazy, deviant, or rebellious-why would students absent themselves from something that is good unless there was something wrong with them? Our society has evolved to the point where many parents have relinquished the greater responsibility of educating their children to the local school systems. As such, the notion of "getting an education" is now equated to "attending school," and therefore, school has been elevated to the position of an "unquestionable good." All blame, then, as to why students truant is diverted away from the school establishment and onto the truant, while students' character, home life, emotional stability, etc are many times blamed for the problem. While these reasons may account for some truancy, they cannot explain all truancy. This dissertation approaches truancy with the assumption that many students value their education. As such, students' desire to truant for deviant purposes will be less than what is believed by proponents of traditional viewpoints. Truancy is alive and well, but not entirely because of reasons that might be expected. This study found that there is much greater incidence of Class Truancy- where students cut a particular class instead of cutting the entire day- than School Truancy. It appears that students are being selective as to which classes they cut and which classes they attend for various reasons. This study found that out of the 2,727 students surveyed there were 1,763 truants, or 64.6% of the total participants. Of these 1,763 truants, 1,613 or 91.5% said they valued education. If positive educational values play an active part in truants' lives, the traditional view of truants' character and reasons why they truant would be challenged, and explanations for truancy must then be looked for within the school itself, particularly at curricular and pedagogical arrangements. In addition, several new factors related to truancy behavior were identified. These include the value students placed on continuing their studies and on higher education. These new variables, mostly overlooked in research on truancy, have a dynamic effect on students' choices regarding their attendance behavior--especially on class truancy.

Truancy' has been deemed a problem in England since the norm of compulsory elementary education was created in 1870. A dominant story 'discovered' about 'truants' is: they are male, 14 to 16 years of age, live in households headed by a lone female parent; and, their 'truancy' is a reliable predictor they will graduate to other forms of deviance which are deemed to pose a threat to society. Yet despite the exhaustive research that created this story, and significant expenditure by Government on the eradication of the problem, rates of attendance have not significantly improved at schools which existed in the 1870s and that continue to provide education in the twenty-first century. In addition, the 'discovered' categories of absentee embody a 'situated moral reasoning' - for example, the absences of children from white, verbally able, advantaged families are more likely to be medicalised as 'school phobia' than prosecuted as 'truancy'.

The thesis covers two sides of the truancy problem in the period following compulsory school attendance - the truanting children and their parents, and the local authorities charged with enforcing the law. The introduction covers current concerns about truancy and school attendance, which have increased in prominence since the 1980s. Chapter 2 reviews the historiography, which has mainly debated working-class attitudes towards compulsory schooling in the nineteenth century. This study draws instead on the insights of development economists into household decision-making over children's schooling to investigate the effectiveness of enforcement in several contrasting localities - rural and urban, industrial and agricultural, and in a seaside resort. The thesis brings together evidence to show that local authorities could make an impact on attendance levels, even in unpropitious local circumstances. Chapter 3 considers the success of measures to improve attendance up to 1900. Chapter 4 offers a detailed case study of a sample of truants and their families from Coventry in the period 1874-99. Chapters 5 to 7 cover 1900-39 and demonstrate changes in the enforcement of attendance, within the context of growing local government services related to child welfare and the family. Attendance officers' local knowledge of working-class families supported the delivery of child welfare legislation in the period after 1906, including special education, assessment of families for free school meals, assistance with medical treatment and the policing of restrictions on children's street trading. Attendance officers also supervised children deemed at risk of offending, who were committed to institutions. These additions to the enforcement role led increasingly to a remedial, rather than punitive, approach to truancy during the 1920s and 30s. The conclusion returns to contemporary policy issues over truancy and sets in context the historical reasons why it has proved such a long-standing problem for government and schools.