This article contributes to understanding school attendance during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and Sweden. Sweden presents a unique European case, as compulsory schools largely remained open with only brief closures, while Germany, opted for extended school closures. This study explores how changes in lower secondary students’ attendance – and schools’ efforts to support attendance – can be understood in relation to each country’s education and welfare systems, and their policy decisions during the pandemic. Focus-group interviews were conducted with school personnel in both countries and analysed by an international research team. The findings suggest that the pandemic and the measures implemented in schools affected students’ opportunities, challenges and willingness to attend school regularly. The described experiences highlighted how consequences varied across student groups, including those in different school grades, with differing access to digital tools, special educational needs (SEN) or previous school attendance problems (SAPs).

School attendance problems (SAPs) have received increased attention internationally in recent years; however, there are still few qualitative studies that explore attendance promotion from the perspective of young people with such experiences and who have managed to increase their attendance. This study contributes by focusing on six young people's experiences of and perspectives on pathways to increased attendance and support related to SAPs in Sweden. Qualitative interviews were conducted with young people with experiences of SAPs, and a thematic analysis was conducted. The results reveal that a combination of relational (informal) and formal support, mainly in the social and learning environment in school, but also from actors outside school, stood out as helpful in increasing their attendance. The young people emphasized that schools should listen to them, understand, offer inclusive support and hope in order to promote attendance. The results might be understood in light of recognition theory by stressing the significance of individual recognition in school in order to promote attendance and that SAPs might be understood as a way for young people to protect themselves from a lack of recognition in different spheres within the school context.

Introduction: School attendance problems (SAPs) affect both the education and development of young learners. There is a need to better understand what supports are needed to overcome and prevent SAPs from students’ perspectives. The aim of the current study is to explore students’ perspectives on what challenges they faced, and what they perceived as helpful in overcoming attendance challenges on their pathways towards completing their education.

Method: We conducted interviews with students (n = 9) in a local comprehensive school (Stadtteilschule) in the city-state Hamburg in Germany. Students were in their final year before obtaining a certificate that qualifies them for possible admission to post-secondary education. Data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: Findings show that students experienced complex challenges to school attendance that were associated with emotional distress, negative school experiences, and reduced well-being. Our findings point to common protective mechanisms in students’ perceptions of what helped them overcome SAPs. The key drivers of school attendance are located within students and their social contexts, including personal resilience, supportive relationships at school, and the social environment.

Discussion: Based on students’ views, we present a model that illustrates the interconnectedness of perceived challenges and supports in the function of risk and protective factors moving across ecological systems in the development of SAPs. We highlight how these areas can guide prevention and intervention to support students in successfully completing their education and transitioning into multiple post-secondary pathways.

This article explores which students–with regard to gender, socio-economic background and migration background–skip school in Germany, Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom (UK) according to PISA data. Students who skip school are observed in many countries, but there is not much systematic research that studies this across countries. Comparable data is to a large extent missing. PISA data offers an opportunity to use comparable data. In PISA, students were asked in 2018, 2015 and 2012 whether they had skipped school a whole day in the last two weeks prior to their completion of the PISA student questionnaire. Patterns of how absence relates to sociodemographic factors vary in countries and school systems. In the comparison between the four countries the UK stands out as having a higher percentage of students who have reported that they have skipped school than in the other countries. This does not seem to be related to any specific group of students. Japan also stands out with a lower percentage of students who have reported that they have skipped school. According to PISA data, skipping school is more related to socio-economic background than any other of the variables studied. The socio-economic background seems to be related to skipping school in all three PISA studies in Sweden and the UK. Gender seems not to be an important factor in the four countries. In Sweden and Germany there is a lower percentage of non-immigrant students who report that they have skipped school than first-and second-generation immigrant students. In the UK the figures are more ambiguous. When the percentages of students skipping school are compared over time and in the countries, it is difficult to find any trends, but the data only covered three measurements during a period of six years, which may be too short a time span to see trends.

There is growing concern in many countries about school absenteeism with its wide range of topics and challenges. International comparative studies on school attendance are rare. Methods, actors’ perspectives, theoretical stance and approaches to comparison also vary in the field. We want to shed new light on school attendance, absenteeism, and prevention for counteracting related problems. We propose new research questions to the study of attendance, absenteeism, and preventive measures in international and comparative research.

School absenteeism is a challenge in many countries. Still, there are few comparisons between countries, which is partly due to a lack of shared definitions of concepts. This article makes use of PISA data to compare self-reported student absenteeism in Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (UK). Three data sets are used, from 2012, 2015, and 2018. The self-reported absenteeism, which is referred to as truancy in the PISA studies, was measured as having skipped a whole school day at least once in the two full weeks before students completed the PISA student questionnaire.

The results show great variation between the studied countries, from 24.4% in the UK in 2015 to 1.5% in Japan in 2012. The percentage of students who reported having skipped school is much higher in the UK than in the other three countries. The differences between the countries concerning the percentage of students reporting having been absent from school are significant for all years, except between Sweden and Germany in 2015. Germany and the UK have a similar pattern in development, with the highest percentages in 2015, while Sweden and Japan have small (albeit not significant) increases from 2012 to 2018. The UK is the only country where the changes between 2012 and 2015 as well as between 2015 and 2018 were significant.

It is not possible to see any obvious patterns between the countries that might be linked to differences related to their welfare regimes, education systems, or values. To find such patterns, it may be necessary either to include more countries in a study or to conduct more in-depth studies on each country.

The research group on International and Comparative Education builds on earlier traditions in the field from Stockholm University and is nowadays an integrated part of the Department of Education. This chapter begins with a retrospective view of the history of international and comparative education at Stockholm University. It describes the development of this research field at the Department of Education and the work with partner organisations, universities and colleagues. The chapter will also touch on the Master’s Program in International and Comparative Education. The current function of international and comparative education at the department in 2021 will be described and discussed as the group continues to develop research with local, national and international scholars, research organisations, colleagues and other educational actors.

Området internationell och jämförande pedagogik har en historia på Stockholms universitet som går tillbaka till tiden före bildandet av den nuvarande Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik 2011. Idag är internationell och jämförande pedagogik en integrerad del av institutionen. Detta kapitel beskriver hur forskningen inom detta område utvecklades under de första åren på den nya institutionen och hur en ny forskningsgrupp skapades 2016. Två forskningsområden som ”ärvdes” av den tidigare forskningstraditionen var storskaliga internationella undersökningar och studier kring utbildning och utveckling. Nya områden för internationell och jämförande pedagogisk forskning har också utvecklats., som utbildning för hållbar utveckling, högre utbildning, genus och jämställdhet, IKT, invandring och problem kring skolnärvaro i ett internationellt perspektiv.

Forskningsgruppen har samarbetat med internationella organisationer såsom UNESCO, IIEP och OECD. Den har också haft kontakter med de nationella myndigheterna SIDA och Skolverket. Initiativ har tagits för att skapa partnerskap med andra universitet runt om i världen genom bl.a. stöd av Linnaeus-Palmeprogrammet. Några av dessa initiativ har inte utvecklats vidare, medan andra blivit framgångsrika. Mest framgångsrikt har samarbetet med Tokyo universitet varit, men andra lyckade samarbeten har också etablerats med universiteten i Jyväskylä, Uleåborg, Sydney och Pinar del Rio. Under en period har också samarbete funnits med Normal University i Peking och VUB i Bryssel. Därutöver har kontakter etablerats med internationella forskningsorganisationer inom området internationell och jämförande pedagogik. Forskningsgruppen var värd för NOCIES/ Global CIE-konferens 2019.

När man skriver om forskningsgruppen i internationell och jämförande pedagogik är det också nödvändigt att nämna mastersprogrammet i samma ämne. Detta drivs av institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik och flera av forskningsgruppens medlemmar har varit mycket aktiva inom programmet, som rekryterar studenter från hela världen. Ett stort antal mastersuppsatser har skrivits och några av dessa har publicerats i en särskild skriftserie, Master ́s Thesis in International and Comparative Education. Många studenter från programmet har fortsatt som doktorander, varav några på institutionen. Programmets studenter har aktivt deltagit i de seminarier, workshops och studieresor som organiserats av forskningsgruppen.

This book celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Department of Education at Stockholm University. The content depicts the developments in education, research and cooperation. An extensive section present the development and footprint of the different research groups of the department. The book is addressed to a diversity of readers going from interested in history of institutions of higher education, comparative education and specific developments in different areas of educational sciences.