School absenteeism and its underlying causes can have negative effects on the cognitive, psychosocial and health development of a child. Research in primary education shows high rates of sickness absence. Many stakeholders are involved in addressing school absenteeism, including primary school professionals, child and youth healthcare physicians, school attendance officers and parents. This study explores these stakeholders' perspectives, their approaches and what they envisage to be necessary in order to improve. It also aims to unveil opportunities and challenges in addressing sickness absence among primary school pupils. Qualitative research was performed with six semi-structured focus group interviews and involving 27 participants from the West-Brabant and Amsterdam regions of the Netherlands. Thematic analysis was used. The overarching theme was aiming for the child's wellbeing. Each focus group interview started with low awareness of sickness absence as a threat to this wellbeing, but awareness grew during the interviews. The participating stakeholders regarded problematic sickness absence as complex due to a wide variety of causes, and felt that each other's expertise was necessary to reduce sickness absence. Schools registered absence, but only occasionally used planned steps; they based the identification of problematic sickness on gut feeling rather than any agreed-upon criteria. To be able to systematically address sickness absence and thus improve the wellbeing of children, stakeholders felt the need for a clearly structured approach, including monitoring of sickness absence of all pupils, identifying problematic absence and promoting collaboration with other stakeholders. An approach should allow for tailoring solutions to the individual child.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) youth report hostile school climates and sexuality-based harassment, but scholarship has not clearly documented how these climates might be associated with college aspirations among this population. Given college has become a common aspiration for many high school youths, we sought to explore subgroup differences in college aspirations among LGBTQ youth, and whether or not LGBTQ-specific community factors, such as Gender Sexuality Alliances (GSA) presence and teacher support, were related to college aspirations. To do this, we analyzed a large sample (N = 11,327, Mage = 15.57) of LGBTQ youth from across the United States. We compared college aspirations across subgroups of youth via bivariate and multivariable logistic regression models to explore how school factors (i.e., presence of GSAs and LGBTQ-specific teacher supportiveness) were associated with college aspirations among LGBTQ youth. We found that transgender youth were less likely to aspire to go to college compared to cisgender counterparts. Additionally, more common sexual minority subgroups (e.g., gay/lesbian) were less likely to aspire to go to college compared to their counterparts with more emergent identity labels (e.g., asexual, queer). The presence of GSAs and higher reports of LGBTQ-supportive teachers were associated with increased odds of aspiring to go to college across all LGBTQ youth in our sample. These findings have implications for how schools and teachers prepare sexual and gender minorities for college. The findings imply that LGBTQ populations should not be treated as monolithic in their college readiness, preparation, and aspirations.