Adolescence is a period of significant development. Adolescents go through many physical, mental, and intellectual changes. The transition between childhood and adulthood confronts all family members with its developmental tasks and challenges. Family relationships, characterized by interconnectedness, mutual trust, good quality of communication and secure attachment, are a good foundation of healthy development. Education and acquiring professional qualifications are important parts of growing up and preparing for independent living. In modern times, the involvement and interest of parents in their child's schooling is a part of family life, which provides support, appropriate monitoring and control. It affects the student's attitude towards school, study habits and educational aspirations. Unresolved challenges of growing up without proper support can lead to school refusal or even dropouts. In the master's thesis, we presented a theoretical framework that studies the family as a protective factor or risk factor for the development of absenteeism. The quantitative research examined and confirmed the correlations between family relationships, parental involvement and the impact on school refusal. It identified differences according to the demographic characteristics of the participants (age, gender, educational programme).
The study included 282 high school students aged 15 to 20 who attended various educational programmes. They answered a questionnaire containing demographic questions and a questionnaire assessing relationships with parents (level of mutual trust, quality of communication and level of anger or alienation), a questionnaire about parent involvement in schooling, their interest in school work and the importance of achievement, and a questionnaire on the adolescent's attitude towards school and the possible occurrence of school refusal behaviour, as well as the reasons and functions of truancy and absenteeism. The results of the research confirmed that the dimensions of good family relations and parental involvement in schooling positively relate to the adolescent's attitude towards school. We confirmed the hypothesis that the quality of relationships between parents and adolescents is related to parental involvement in schooling. The better the relationships are, the more involved parents are in education. We confirmed the hypothesis that the better the relationships with the parents are, the less adolescents refuse school. We also confirmed the hypothesis that the more parents are involved in adolescent schooling, the less school refusal there is. The results are statistically significant. We could not confirm assumptions regarding gender and age. There was no statistically significant difference in the quality of relationships with parents and their involvement in schooling according to gender or age. We confirmed statistically significant differences in certain functions of school refusal according to the educational programmes.
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