Ecological pathways to school engagement and critical thinking: Understanding chronic absenteeism in Chinese schools

Chronic absenteeism undermines learning across education systems worldwide. Guided by an ecological perspective adapted to a centralized, exam-intensive context, this study examines how student-level factors and family-school linkages relate to persistent absence among secondary students in China. We focus analytically on the micro level (motivation, pressure, family climate, and technology use) and the meso level (home-school coordination), while interpreting these associations against macro features-state regulation, high-stakes examination culture, and the household-registration system-that can compress the distance between broader structures and daily school life. Absenteeism was self-reported using anonymous, neutrally worded items to reduce social desirability; magnitudes are therefore interpreted cautiously. To avoid conflating heterogeneous forms of technology engagement, we distinguish problematic recreational screen use from instrumental academic screen use. Results indicate that lower engagement and higher perceived pressure are linked to greater odds of chronic absence, while warmer family-school connections are associated with reduced absenteeism; associations with recreational screen use are positive and modest, whereas academic screen use shows no consistent adverse pattern. In supplementary checks, findings remained directionally consistent when trimming extreme reports, applying alternative chronic-absence thresholds, and adjusting for related behaviors such as tardiness where available. We also document an upper-tail skew in parental education and discuss implications for generalizability, including the possibility that pressure effects are stronger in highly educated families. Finally, we clarify that "critical thinking" is treated as an interpretive implication, not a measured construct, and outline a plan to test it directly in future work. The study contributes a culturally specific yet internationally relevant account of how ecological mechanisms shape school attendance in high-stakes systems.