School Refusal and Its Underlying Mechanisms: A Network Perspective on Individual and Environmental Determinants

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the interactions between school refusal and key individual-level and environmental-level factors, including perfectionism, social adaptive functioning, perceived autonomy, mindfulness, and school climate using network analysis. The research sample comprised 601 high school students (374 females and 227 males). Data analysis was conducted in two stages. First, a regularized partial correlation network was estimated to examine the structural relationship between school refusal and the associated variables. Second, Bayesian directed acyclic graphs (DAG) were employed to investigate potential causal relationships and the direction effects among these variables. The results identified "school connectedness," a dimension of the school climate scale, as the most central node in the network, exhibiting direct and indirect associations with school refusal, perfectionism, social adaptive functioning, perceived autonomy, mindfulness, and their subdimensions. These findings emphasize the central role of school connectedness in influencing school refusal behaviors, demonstrating that positive teacher and peer relationships serve as protective factors, while weak social bonds or negative experiences (e.g., bullying) increase avoidance tendencies. Additionally, the results highlight the interplay between social, emotional, and cognitive factors, reinforcing the importance of mindfulness, adaptive coping strategies, and autonomy-supportive environments in mitigating school refusal.