Is There a Link Between Classmates With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders and Other Students' Absences?

• In Event: Compositional and School Organization Effects on Student Outcomes

Abstract

Federal special education inclusion policies have increased the number of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) included in mainstream classrooms. Little is known about the implications of inclusion on nondisabled peers, particularly on indicators for school engagement, such as absences. Using school-level fixed effects and a rich set of control variables to analyze the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study- Kindergarten Class, we find annual absences increase by 0.41 days for students with an EBD classmate. Further, the likelihood of a general education student being chronically absent is 1.38 higher in the presence of an EBD classmate. The relationship is stronger for girls than for boys and absences are higher in classrooms where the teacher does not possess special education certification.

Authors

• Michael A. Gottfried, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Anna J. Egalite, North Carolina State University

• Jacob Kirksey, University of California - Santa Barbara