Top

Gepubliceerd in:

01-12-2012 | Empirical Research

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

Auteurs: Brandy R. Maynard, Christopher P. Salas-Wright, Michael G. Vaughn, Kristen E. Peters

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence | Uitgave 12/2012

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.

vorige artikel Sibling Relationships and Empathy Across the Transition to Adolescence

volgende artikel Authorships, Collaborations, and Acknowledgments: On the Increasing Responsibility to Report Relative Contributions

Attwood, G., & Croll, P. (2006). Truancy in secondary school pupils: Prevalence, trajectories and pupil perspectives. Research Papers in Education, 21, 467–484.CrossRef

Baker, M. L., Sigmon, J. N., & Nugent, M. E. (2001). Truancy reduction: Keeping students in school. Bulletin of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, September, 1–15.

Best, D., Manning, V., Gossop, M., Gross, S., & Strang, J. (2006). Excessive drinking and other problem behaviors among 14–16 year old schoolchildren. Addictive Behaviors, 31, 1424–1435.PubMedCrossRef

Bowen, N. K., Bowen, G. L., & Ware, W. B. (2002). Neighborhood social disorganization, families, and the educational behavior of adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 17, 468–490.CrossRef

Corville-Smith, J., Ryan, B. A., Adams, G. R., & Dalicandro, T. (1998). Distinguishing absentee students from regular attenders: The combined influence of personal, family, and school factors. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 27, 629–640.CrossRef

Garry, E. M. (1996). Truancy: First step to a lifetime of problems. OJJDP: Juvenile Justice Bulletin, October, 1–7.

Goldstein, J. S., Little, S. G., & Akin-Little, A. (2003). Absenteeism: A review of the literature and school psychology’s role. The California School Psychologist, 8, 127–139.

Henry, K. L. (2007). Who’s skipping school: Characteristics of truants in 8th and 10th grade. Journal of School Health, 77, 29–35.PubMedCrossRef

Henry, K. L. (2010). Skipping school and using drugs: A brief report. Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy, 17, 650–657.CrossRef

Henry, K. L., & Huizinga, D. H. (2007). School related risk and protective factors associated with truancy among urban youth placed at risk. Journal of Primary Prevention, 28, 505–519.PubMedCrossRef

Henry, K. L., Knight, K. E., & Thornberry, T. P. (2012). School disengagement as a predictor of dropout, delinquency, and problem substance use during adolescence and early adulthood. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41, 156–166.PubMedCrossRef

Hirschfield, P. J., & Gasper, J. (2011). The relationship between school engagement and delinquency in late childhood and early adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40, 3–22.PubMedCrossRef

Holden, R. R. (2010). Social desirability. In R. J. Corsini & W. E. Craighead (Eds.), Encyclopedia of psychology (pp. 1628–1629). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Hunt, M. K., & Hopko, D. R. (2009). Predicting high school truancy among students in the Appalachian South. Journal of Primary Prevention, 30, 549–567.PubMedCrossRef

Kearney, C. A. (2008). School absenteeism and school refusal behavior in youth: A contemporary review. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 451–471.PubMedCrossRef

Kim, J. S., & Streeter, C. L. (2006). Increasing school attendance: Effective strategies and interventions. In C. Franklin, M. B. Harris, & P. Allen-Meares (Eds.), The school services sourcebook: A guide for school-based professionals (pp. 397–404). New York: Oxford University Press.

Lauchlan, F. (2003). Responding to chronic non-attendance: A review of intervention approaches. Educational Psychology in Practice, 19, 133–146.CrossRef

Lochner, L., & Moretti, E. (2004). The effect of education on crime: Evidence from prison inmates, arrests, and self-reports. The American Economic Review, 94, 155–189.CrossRef

Lounsbury, J. W., Steel, R. P., Loveland, J. M., & Gibson, L. W. (2004). An investigation of personality traits in relation to adolescent school absenteeism. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 33, 457–466.CrossRef

Lyon, A. R., & Cotler, S. (2007). Toward reduced bias and increased utility in the assessment of school refusal behavior: The case for diverse samples and evaluations of context. Psychology in the Schools, 44, 551–565.CrossRef

MacDonald, R., & Marsh, J. (2007). Missing school: Educational engagement, youth transitions, and social exclusion. Youth & Society, 36, 143–162.CrossRef

Malcolm, H., Wilson, V., Davidson, J., & Kirk, S. (2003). Absence from school: A study of its causes and effects in seven LEAs. (Department for Education and Skills Research Report RR424). Sherwood Park, England: National Foundation for Educational Research. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_mis.asp.

Moffitt, T. E. (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100, 674–701.PubMedCrossRef

Moffitt, T. E., & Caspi, A. (2001). Childhood predictors differentiate life-course persistent and adolescence-limited antisocial pathways among males and females. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 355–375.PubMedCrossRef

National Center for Education Statistics. (2006). The condition of education 2006. Washington, DC: US Department of Education. Retrieved October 10, 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006071.

Nylund, K. L., Asparouhov, T., & Muthen, B. O. (2007). Deciding on the number of classes and latent class analysis and growth mixture modeling: A Monte Carlo simulation study. Structural Equation Modeling, 14(4), 535–569.CrossRef

Pathammavong, R., Leatherdale, S. T., Ahmed, R., Griffith, J., Nowatzki, J., & Manske, S. (2011). Examining the link between education related outcomes and student health risk behaviours among Canadian youth: Data from the 2006 National Youth Smoking Survey. Canadian Journal of Education, 34, 215–247.

Polit, D. F. (2010). Statistics and data analysis for nursing research (2nd ed.). New York: Pearson.

Romero, M., & Lee, Y. S. (2008). The influence of maternal and family risk on chronic absenteeism in early schooling. Columbia, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty.

Southwell, N. (2006). Truants on truancy—A badness or a valuable indicator of unmet special education needs? British Journal of Special Education, 33, 91–97.CrossRef

Stahl, A. L. (2008). Petitioned status offense cases in juvenile courts, 2004. OJJDP Fact Sheet, 2, 1–2.

StataCorp. (2011). Stata statistical software: Release 12. College Station, TX: StataCorp LP.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). (2011). Results from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Summary of national findings. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2011). School enrollment in the United States: 2008. Available at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p20-564.pdf. Accessed January 10, 2012.

Van der Heijden, P., Hart, H., & Dessens, J. (1997). A parametric bootstrap procedure to perform statistical tests in a latent class analysis of anti-social behavior. In J. Rost & R. Langeheine (Eds.), Applications of latent trait and latent class models in the social sciences (pp. 196–208). Münster: Waxmann.

Vaughn, M. G., Maynard, B. R., Salas-Wright, C. P., Perron, B. E., & Abdon, A. (2012). Prevalence and correlates of truancy in the United States: Results from a national sample (Under review).

Vaughn, M. G., Wexler, J., Beaver, K. M., Perron, B. E., Roberts, G., & Fu, J. (2011). Psychiatric correlates of behavioral indicators of school disengagement in the United States. Psychiatric Quarterly, 82, 191–206.PubMedCrossRef

Vermunt, J. K., & Magidson, J. (2008). LG-syntax user’s guide: Manual for latent GOLD 4.5 syntax module. Belmont, MA: Statistical Innovations Inc.

Yang, C. (2006). Evaluating latent class analyses in qualitative phenotype identification. Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, 50, 1090–1104.CrossRef

Zhang, J., & Yu, K. (1998). What’s the relative risk? A method of correcting the odds ratio in cohort studies of common outcomes. Journal of the American Medical Association, 280, 1690–1691.PubMedCrossRef

Titel: Who Are Truant Youth? Examining Distinctive Profiles of Truant Youth Using Latent Profile Analysis
Auteurs: Brandy R. Maynard
Christopher P. Salas-Wright
Michael G. Vaughn
Kristen E. Peters
Publicatiedatum: 01-12-2012
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence / Uitgave 12/2012
Print ISSN: 0047-2891
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-6601
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-012-9788-1

Bohn Stafleu van Loghum

Deel dit onderdeel of sectie (kopieer de link)

Abstract

Log in om toegang te krijgen

Andere artikelen Uitgave 12/2012

Religiosity Profiles of American Youth in Relation to Substance Use, Violence, and Delinquency

Emma Cunliffe: Murder, Medicine, and Motherhood

Authorships, Collaborations, and Acknowledgments: On the Increasing Responsibility to Report Relative Contributions

Christopher Slobogin and Mark R. Fonacaro: Juveniles at Risk: A Plea for Preventive Justice

Emerging Scholar Best Article Award, 2012

Christopher Barry, Patricia Kerig, Kurt Stellwagen, and Tammy Barry (Eds): Narcissism and Machiavellianism in Youth: Implications for the Development of Adaptive and Maladaptive Behavior