n the 1971 by the Inner London Educational Authority and the National Union of Teachers working together: non – cooperation, coupled with threats of industrial action ensured that the research was cut short. Yet there is a body of theoretical and empirical literature that looks at school itself as a cause of truancy. Cloward and Ohlin (1961) regard truancy as part of a wider delinquency caused by “blocked opportunity” within school. Working class children begin their school careers reasonably confident about their aims and ambitions in life but the middle class bias of school tends to denigrate these aims and ambitions and to push others in their place the children dislike but lack the sophistication consciously to examine and reject. The result is a disaffection with school and it’s ideals that can result in delinquency. Cicourel and Kituse (1963) look more to the structure of relationships within school between teachers and pupils, how these progressively erode the self – esteem of working class pupils and produce feelings of inferiority that again, lead to delinquent behavior. Such broadly is the view taken by Carson, Gleeson and Wardhaugh (1992). They accept the traditional description of truants as children with what are normally defined as “problems” but go on to claim that the whole present structure of society, and not only schools are responsible for truancy. In his first study of the subject, O’Keefe (1981) divides truancy into two types. This is “blanket” truancy, where the child stays completely away from school and which has been the only object of much study. Then there is post – registration truancy where the child is marked officially present at school but is subsequently absent from school / all lessons. He suggests that while no systematic research had yet been done here, such truancy is on a huge scale. Moreover, according to Stoll and O’keefe (19...
