Coping with life by coping with school?: School refusal in young people

In this chapter we explore psychological explanations for what may be happening when a young person avoids attending school. Terms such as school phobia, school refusal, persistent and chronic non-attendance and truancy will be reviewed. The particular focus here is the form of school non-attendance known as school-refusal, sometimes called school phobia. Considering a range of theoretical formulations for school refusal behaviour will lead us to understand how these in turn influence interventions. The literature guides us to a particular focus upon the role of anxiety in school refusal behaviour, and in turn upon cognitive behavioural approaches that may help to remediate this. We shall acknowledge the significant influence of family and school contexts upon a young person refusing to attend school, and explore what this may imply for the practitioner. Above all, the individual and varying nature of the problem presentation for school refusal will be acknowledged. An example from educational psychology casework is presented to illustrate a multi-systemic approach to school-refusal based problems.