Withdrawn at Home, Withdrawn from School: The Relationship between Internalizing Behaviors and School Attendance in Young Public Housing Residents

Background and Purpose: The share of children in the United States experiencing poor mental health is increasing, particularly in the wake of COVID-19. Schools are seeing an increase in students who are chronically absent, with 17% of U.S. public school students considered chronically absent last school year. Both issues are amplified in Black and Latine communities and communities of concentrated poverty, where housing conditions exacerbated COVID-related and mental health risks. Poor mental health puts children at risk of lower school attendance, which can lead to learning disruptions and more limited access to school-based resources like school meals. These educational disturbances can have far-reaching implications on outcomes into adulthood. An understanding of the relationship between poor mental health and absenteeism, particularly in vulnerable populations like those living in public housing, may help target interventions for these marginalized families.

This study examines the relationship between internalizing behaviors and absenteeism among children living in one of New England’s oldest and largest public housing developments. We hypothesize that children presenting with higher levels of internalizing behaviors will demonstrate higher rates of absenteeism.

Methods: Parents of children enrolled in school (aged 5-17) residing in a public housing development in Boston (N=109) participated in face-to-face surveys, conducted between October 2022 and April 2023. Parents reported on family demographics, as well as on children’s school attendance, mental health, and behavior.

Children’s absenteeism was approximated by parents using a categorical scale ranging from 0 to 35 or more school days missed. Internalizing behaviors were reported by parents using the emotional problems scale of the SDQ, which contains 5 indicators, including “often unhappy, depressed or sad” and “anxious, or often seems worried” (α=.81). We analyzed the relationship between internalizing behaviors and children’s absenteeism using ordinary least squares regression.

Results: 16% of our sample endorsed moderate to severe internalizing behaviors, compared to the national prevalence of depression (4.4%) and anxiety (9.4%) among 3-17 year-olds.

In this sample, internalizing behaviors significantly predicted absenteeism, controlling for children’s age, gender, and race/ethnicity, and parent education (Adjusted R²=.18, p<.001). Holding all other predictors constant, each standard deviation increase in internalizing behaviors is associated with an increase of 3 additional school absences (β=2.94, p<.001).

Conclusions and Implications: Our hypothesis that children’s internalizing behaviors and absenteeism are positively associated is supported by our results. We build upon the literature that suggests that youth living in marginalized housing and neighborhood contexts experience high levels of poor mental health outcomes and may therefore be at high risk for chronic absenteeism as well. These results hold important implications for research and practice, speaking to the need for further exploration into the relationship between internalizing behaviors and school absenteeism to better understand what is driving this relationship and how social workers can design school and community-based interventions. This research should engage young people to gain their perspective on the complex relationship between mental health and absenteeism and to envision interventions.