Prevalence, Severity, and Disparities in Chronic Absenteeism in Nashville Public Schools (Poster 8)

• In Event: Friday Poster Session 4:55
  In Invited Poster Session: 2024 AERA Undergraduate Fellows Research Poster Fair

Abstract

Chronic absenteeism is a widespread issue in education with various contributing factors and interventions, both of which depend on context. Review of previous literature points to the use of Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological model as a framework for understanding and aligning causes with interventions. The current study seeks to understand prevalence, severity, and disparities in chronic absenteeism in the context of Nashville Public Schools over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic through the use of two administrative data sets, spanning from 2017-18 to 2022-23 school years. Descriptive analysis was run using Stata along with the use of risk ratios as a method of understanding disparity over time. Results confirm hypotheses that absenteeism is both most prevalent and most severe in the youngest and oldest students. The Covid-19 pandemic caused an increase in the prevalence and disparities of absenteeism, making students of color at significantly higher risk of becoming chronically absent than their white peers. Future research should examine causal relationships between predictor variables and absenteeism, and researchers should continue to utilize the socio-ecological framework to generate evidence-based and cause-aligned interventions for populations with severe chronic absenteeism.

Author

• Jamie Klinenberg, Vanderbilt University