ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to consider varied forms of absence, including absenteeism from work, truancy and missed appointments in modern society in the context of a number of theoretical perspectives within sociology. It does not address empirical material directly but focuses, rather, on the relevance of some central insights of social theory for any comprehensive account of the problematic character of absence in modern society. It is argued that three key theoretical perspectives of social theory provide distinctive explanatory, interpretative and descriptive accounts of absence that reflect the quite different social worlds in which these phenomena arise. A brief account of these worlds of experience is suggested and related to a more general historical sociology of the emergence and continuous transformation of modern society.
