Mental Health Behaviors, Student-Teacher Relationships, and Racial and Ethnic Disparities In Kindergarten Chronic Absenteeism: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Sample

Background and Purpose: Chronic absenteeism in kindergarten has lasting academic and socioemotional consequences, yet little is known about whether associations between mental health behaviors and chronic absenteeism operate through proximal processes including child-teacher and child-peer interactions in the kindergarten classroom. Grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) this study examined whether internalizing and externalizing behaviors measured in fall kindergarten are associated with chronic absenteeism across the kindergarten year, and whether these associations operate through student-teacher closeness, conflict, and peer interpersonal skills, and whether patterns vary across racial and ethnic groups.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011; n=8,326; 51% male; 51% White non-Hispanic, 14% Black non-Hispanic, 25% Hispanic, 4% Asian non-Hispanic, 6% other). Chronic absenteeism was defined as 11 or more days absent in the kindergarten year. Survey-weighted logistic and linear regression accounted for the complex sampling design. Mediation was assessed using bootstrapped bias-corrected confidence intervals with 1000 replications. Three proximal process mediators were examined simultaneously — student-teacher closeness, student-teacher conflict, and peer interpersonal skills. Models controlled for child sex, disability status, child health, family income, parent education, home language, age at kindergarten entry, number of siblings, pre-kindergarten attendance, full-day kindergarten enrollment, school locale, and parent involvement as a mesosystem covariate.

Results: Approximately 13% of children were chronically absent nationally. Internalizing behaviors were positively associated with chronic absenteeism (OR=1.22, p=0.004) while externalizing behaviors were not (OR=0.88, p=0.053). Relative to White non-Hispanic children, Asian non-Hispanic children showed elevated odds of chronic absenteeism (OR=1.51, p=0.050), as did Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander children (OR=2.48, p=0.037) and American Indian/Alaska Native children (OR=2.32, p<0.001). Both internalizing and externalizing behaviors were significantly associated with lower teacher closeness, lower peer interpersonal skills, and higher conflict (p<0.001). Bootstrapped mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of internalizing behaviors through student-teacher closeness (indirect effect=0.027, 95% CI [0.003, 0.052]), accounting for 13.6% of the total effect. A significant negative indirect pathway emerged through conflict (indirect effect=-0.045, 95% CI [-0.089, -0.005]). Peer interpersonal skills did not independently mediate the association (indirect effect=0.002, 95% CI [-0.043, 0.043]). Asian non-Hispanic children had significantly lower teacher closeness scores than White non-Hispanic peers after full adjustment, consistent with the bioecological model’s proposition that demand characteristics shape proximal process quality.

Conclusions and Implications: Internalizing behaviors in kindergarten are associated with chronic absenteeism in part through their associations with student-teacher closeness. The finding that peer interpersonal skills did not independently mediate this association suggests that the child-teacher relationship is the more proximal pathway through which mental health behaviors are associated with chronic absenteeism in kindergarten. Disparities in chronic absenteeism rates and in teacher closeness for Asian non-Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native children likely reflect structural conditions including systemic racism and inequitable school practices rather than individual characteristics of students or families. Supporting close student-teacher relationships, particularly for children experiencing internalizing symptoms and for children from racially and ethnically minoritized communities, represents a promising direction for promoting equitable school attendance from the very start of schooling.