Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this article is to clarify how elementary school teachers dealt with school non-attenders who were neglected by their parents. Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 elementary school teachers who had handled school non-attenders neglected by their parents. We conducted data analysis using Methodology for Conceptualization of Nursing developed by Naomi Funashima. Results: We extracted 414 codes and 7 core categories which showed the experience of elementary school teachers who had tried to help school non-attenders to go to school. Seven concepts that were extracted in our analysis were as follows: "efforts to make a school enjoyable for children," "the support by all school staff (especially class teachers) and the community members," "involvement for strengthening parents' nurturing skills," "the difficulty in dealing with child problems coming to the surface," "the difficulty in supporting children in a timely fashion," "the limit of involvement with parents of neglected children in the current school system," and "the authority and mechanism for making forceful intervention in the families of neglected children possible." Discussion: Our analysis revealed that although they made strong efforts to help school non-attenders in neglected families to go to school beyond the scope of their work responsibility from the perspective of goal achievement, elementary school teachers faced problems when dealing with the issue of children, which arose secondarily from the characteristics seen in parents of neglected children and the nature of their neglect, so that such teachers requested the assistance of the community in and out of schools.
