Beyond the school refusal/truancy binary: engaging with the complexities of extended school non-attendance

Extended school non-attendance, commonly named truancy or school refusal, has over the last decade attracted attention among educational researchers. This article points to a need for theoretical perspectives that can account for the complexity and ambiguity of the phenomenon. The article presents a critical analysis of the research field of extended school non-attendance. It is argued that both the school refusal/truancy terminology as well as more environment sensitive approaches support a simplifying and individualising representation of extended school non-attendance. It is further argued that much research focuses on the prevalence of psychopathology in children with extended school non-attendance, and therefore eliminates the voices of these children. Based on the analysis, the article proposes a theoretical framework based on poststructuralism and new materialism as a way to grasp the complex phenomenon of extended school non-attendance.