Predictors of absenteeism among primary school teachers

The present study was designed in order to examine the contribution of personal attributes, teachers' organizational commitment, and two organizational attributes, school climate and culture of absence at, school, vis-à-vis two different types of teacher absences from work, namely voluntary and involuntary absence. For that purpose, 200 teachers (74% answered) from Jerusalem (Israel), were required to complete the following scales: the Organization commitment scale, the primary school climate scale and the culture of absence scale. Results indicated that the correlations between attitudes and voluntary measures differ from the same correlations involving the involuntary measures. None of the biographical (gender, age and seniority, education) and/or attitudinal variables can explain the variance for any of the involuntary indices. Lower teachers' commitment to school, principal's restrictive behavior and absentee school culture offer a better explanation of variances in teacher absenteeism than any of the biographical variables.