190
Evans
ure to enroll, requirements to work), individual (e.g., chronic illness, contagion, fatigue), and inter-
actions between school, family and individual (e.g., refusal, racial conflict, transportation problems).
Such a broad classification system would allow the prevalence and impact of school refusal to be com-
pared to other forms of absenteeism, thereby permitting triage of treatment and research resources.
Chronic school refusal and its subtypes have historically been classified along several dimen-
sions. Such classifications often viewed school refusal as a unique disorder having distinct subdivi-
sions. The recent functional classification of chronic refusal subtypes views refusal as a subset of be-
havioral and emotional disorders, and allows for dynamic interactions between refusal behaviors. As
a result, functional classification subtypes such as anxiety, avoidance and malingering may offer a
new method to improve recognition and treatment, but as yet has not been shown to be superior to
other classification methods in understanding or treating chronic school refusal.
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