UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones 12-2011 The relationship between the functions of school refusal behavior and family environment Rachel Marie Schafer University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Child Psychology Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, and the School Psychology Commons Repository Citation Schafer, Rachel Marie, "The relationship between the functions of school refusal behavior and family environment" (2011). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 1401. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/3310256 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. 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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE FUNCTIONS OF SCHOOL REFUSAL BEHAVIOR AND FAMILY ENVIRONMENT by Rachel Marie Schafer A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Psychology Department of Psychology College of Liberal Arts Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas December 2011 THE GRADUATE COLLEGE We recommend the thesis prepared under our supervision by Rachel Marie Schafer entitled The Relationship between the Functions of School Refusal Behavior and Family Environment be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology Department of Psychology Christopher Kearney, Committee Chair Michelle Carro, Committee Member Jennifer Rennels, Committee Member Lori Olafson, Graduate College Representative Ronald Smith, Ph. D., Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate College December 2011 ii ABSTRACT The Relationship Between the Functions of School Refusal Behavior and Family Environment by Rachel Schafer Dr. Christopher Kearney, Examination Committee Chair Professor of Psychology University of Nevada, Las Vegas The current study examined the relationship between the functions of school refusal behavior and family environment characteristics in a community sample of youth. The primary aim was to determine the family environments most strongly associated with each function of school refusal behavior in an ethnically diverse, community-based sample of youths referred to the legal process for absenteeism. Hypotheses for the current study were based on the premise that family environment characteristics of the community sample of youths with problematic absenteeism would generally resemble those identified in previous clinical samples. The first hypothesis was that youth who refuse school primarily to avoid stimuli that provoke negative affectivity would exhibit a healthy family dynamic. The second hypothesis was that youth who refuse school primarily to escape social or evaluative situations would exhibit an isolated family dynamic. The third hypothesis was that youth who refuse school primarily to pursue attention from significant others would exhibit an enmeshed family dynamic. The fourth hypothesis was that youth who refuse school primarily to pursue tangible reinforcement outside of school would exhibit a conflictive and detached family dynamic. The sample was recruited from two truancy settings and was composed of 215 middle and high school youth aged 11-17 years and their parent or guardian. Overall families scored significantly lower than the norm on the Cohesion, Independence, Active- iii Recreational Orientation, and Intellectual-Cultural Orientation Family Environment Scale subscales. Families also scored lower than the norm on the Expressiveness subscale and higher than the norm on the Conflict subscale, but these findings were not robust. Families of function one and function four youth were associated with low levels of cohesion and high levels of conflict. There were no significant associations between function two and function three youth and specific family characteristics. Varying results were also found for English-speaking and Spanish-speaking families. These results provide important clinical implications regarding assessment and treatment of school refusing youth in community settings. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am forever grateful to my parents, Jack and Donna, and my fiancé Philip; without their encouragement and support I could not have completed this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Christopher Kearney for all of his patience and guidance throughout this process. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Michelle Carro, Dr. Jennifer Rennels, and Dr. Lori Olafson. I also owe a thousand thanks to my fellow lab members Gillian, Courtney, Marisa, and Melissa, without them this project would not have been possible. v TABLE OF CONTENT CHATPER 1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….…1 School Absenteeism……………………………………………………………………….1 Historical Perspective..……………………………………………………………………1 Truancy……………………………………………………………………………………1 Psychoneurotic Truancy……………………………………………………………….…..2 School Phobia……………………………………………………………………………..3 School Phobia and Truancy………………………………………………………….........6 Kearney and Silverman’s Approach………………………………………………………7 Diagnostic Conceptualization…………………………………………………………......9 Epidemiology……………………………………………………………………………...9 Prevalence...…………………………………………………………………………….....9 Age……………………………………………………………………………………….12 Gender……………………………………………………………………………………12 Ethnicity………………………………...………………………………………………..12 Effects of Problematic Absenteeism…………………………………………………..…13 Psychopathology…………………………...…………………………………………….16 Assessment……………………………………………………………………………….18 Contextual Factors……….………………………………………………………………21 CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE…………………………………….....26 Family Environment and School Refusal Behavior……………………………………...26 Concrete Family Factors………………………………………………………………....27 Parent-Child Relationship………………………………………………………………..28 Parent Psychopathology………………………………………………………………….30 Families of School Phobic Youth and Families of Truants…………………………...…32 Empirical Investigations of Family Environment Dynamics………………………….…33 Classification of Family Types…………………………………………………………..40 Enmeshed Families………………………………………………………………………40 Conflictive Families………………………………………………………………….…..41 Detached Families…………………………………………………………………….….42 Isolated Families…………………………………………………………………….…...43 Healthy Families………………………………………………………………………....43 Specific Family Types and Functions of School Refusal Behavior………………….….43 Families of Youth with Negatively Reinforced School Refusal Behavior……………....44 Families of Youth with Positively Reinforced School Refusal Behavior…………….….45 The Current Study……………………………………………………………………......46 Hypotheses……………………………………………………………………………….47 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………..49 Participants…………………………………………………………………………….…49 Youth Measures………………………………………………………………………….50 Parent Measures………………………………………………………………………….51 Procedure…...……………………………………………………………………………55 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS…………………………………………………………………58 Family Environment Scale……………………………………………………………….58 Function of School Refusal Behavior……………………………………………………58 Hypothesis 1……………………………………………………………………………...59 vi Hypothesis 2……………………………………………………………………………...61 Hypothesis 3……………………………………………………………………………...62 Hypothesis 4……………………………………………………………………………...62 Function 4 Profiles……………………………………………………………………….64 Post Hoc Analyses……………………………………………………………………….66 Demographic Analyses…………………………………………………………………..66 Language Analyses………………………………………………………………………66 Hypothesis 1……………………………………………………………………………..67 Hypothesis 2……………………………………………………………………………...68 Hypothesis 3……………………………………………………………………………...68 Hypothesis 4……………………………………………………………………………...68 Additional FES Subscales………………………………………………………………..69 CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION……………………………………………………………..69 Overall Family Environment Characteristics…………………………………………….69 Negatively Reinforced School Refusal Behavior………………………………………..70 Positively Reinforced School Refusal Behavior…………………………………………75 Clinical Implications……………………………………………………………………..78 Study Limitations………………………………………………………………………...79 Suggestions for Future Research………………………………………………………...81 APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………...98 Appendix A: Family Environment Scale……………………………………………......98 Appendix B: School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised-Parent………………………103 Appendix C: School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised-Child………………………..108 REFERNCES…………………………………………………………………………...112 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………128 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: FES Subscale Descriptions……………………………………………………..53 Table 2: Means and Standard Deviations of FES Standard Scores across Entire Sample …………………………………………………………………………………………..83 Table 3: Primary Function of School Refusal Behavior by Reporter……………………84 Table 4: FES Standard Scores across Parent Reported Function of School Refusal Behavior……………………………………………………………………………….....85 Table 5: FES Standard Scores across Child Reported Function of School Refusal Behavior……………………………………………………………………………….....87 Table 6: FES Standard