This is a empirical study about truancy and its interrelation to school improvement and school effectiveness. The main research question is: “Is the absence rate (or extent of schoolabsentism) a profiling or valid characteristic for the state of effectiveness/improvement of a school?” It is based on the study “The phenomenon of Truancy in Switzerland and its Consequences” under the direction of the department of educational science (Prof. Margrit Stamm, presented at the ECER-Congress 2006, Geneva) and consists in a continuation and enhancement of the initial research questions, which was in the first instance description, analyse and explanation of juvenile truancy behaviour patterns and the institutional role of school in this context. These additional study delves into the relative aspects of quality regarding the different perspectives of teachers (N=240) and students (N=4000) leading to different approaches and requirements concerning a “good school” and intends to enlighten the shared criteria and identify by this “good schools”. Moreover this study intends to answer the question if and how “good schools” are able to deal with high absent rates. Therefore all statements of the target groups are arranged in input quality, process quality and output/outcome quality. Furthermore there is a focus to the coherencies with the criteria mentioned above and the law of school (in Switzerland governed by the Cantons) in order to decide if “top-down processes” could be identified, such as unmistakably legal norms manifest itself in unmistakably rules in schools and leed according to that to a good process quality.

Method: 1) Scoring Scale leeding to a ranking of the participating schools (N=28) Therefore all statements of the target groups (teacher; N=240, students; N=4000) are arranged in input quality, process quality and output/outcome quality and due to the means of the variables the ranking order will be given. 2) Depending on this “goodness of quality” and/or the absent rate multiple correlations analysis take place in order to identify the major variables who influence the output quality. Research Instruments/Sources: Questionnaires; -Students (N=4000) items concerning their truancy behaviour pattern, wellbeing in class and school, relationship to teachers and classmates, self concept, parentel school monitoring... -Teachers (N=240) items concerning experience with truancy, dealing with truancy, satisfaction being a teacher, relationship to colleagues, students and school pricipal, satisfaction with pricipals work (school management)... - laws of school from 9 Swiss Cantons (German speaking part)

Identify profiling marks of quality (effectiveness and improvement) of a school, decision if the absent rate is one of them or not and to fathom the “top-down process”; from the law of school to the rules in a single school