School refusal (SR) is a complex problem that may be caused by different risk factors such as individual and contextual factors (Kearney, 2007; Maynard et al., 2018; Heyne et al., 2019). These mechanisms can be described in the context of self-determination theory (SDT). For these reasons, the purpose of the present study is investigate the relationship between teacher perceived psychological control and support, psychological basic needs, SR behavior, and academic achievement, on adolescent sample. It is hypothesized that teacher perceived psychological control and autonomy support play a role on need frustration and need satisfaction; in turn, need satisfaction could reduce while need frustration could promote SR behavior and number of absences. Finally, SR behavior and number of absences could reduce academic achievement. 263 students (196 females, 67 males) with an average age of 16.14 (SD = 1.35; range 13–20 years). SEM analyses with observed variables have shown that the final model fit well the data, χ²(8) = 16.34, p = 0.04, CFI = 0.96, SRMR = 0.04, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.06 (0.01; 0.10), showing the following significant path: need satisfaction was positively predicted by perceived teacher support and negatively predicted by teacher perceived psychological control; need frustration was positively predicted by teacher perceived psychological control; number of absences was negatively predicted by need satisfaction; SR was positively predicted by need frustration; school achievement was negatively predicted by SR and number of absences. These results have several implications for the school context and the deepening of the construct of SR and absenteeism.

Despite the extensive research on parental psychological control, no study has explored the relation between parental and teacher psychological control, maladaptive perfectionism and learned helplessness (LH). The purpose of this study was to investigate (1) whether perceived teacher psychological control predicts positively LH, (2) whether perceived parental psychological control predicts maladaptive perfectionism, and (3) whether the association between perceived parental and teacher psychological control and LH is mediated by maladaptive perfectionism. In a sample of 433 participants, 268 females (61.9%) and 165 males (38.1%), ranged in age from 13 to 19 years (M = 15.38, standard deviation (SD) = 1.18), it was found that teacher psychological control has a more relevant role in the prediction of LH than parental control. Moreover, maladaptive perfectionism was a full mediator of the relationship between perceptions of teacher psychological control and LH. These results extend previous studies on teacher psychological control and, for the first time, provide evidence for the relation with LH, identifying maladaptive perfectionism as a variable that accounts for the relation between teacher psychological control and LH.