Children’s behavioral and emotional problems have increased dramatically in recent years, with many more children evaluated for problems and a surging population of youth who are medicated. Two overarching, complementary aims drive the proposed inquiry: to assess the school context as a source of young children’s problems and to assess the school influence on responses to these problems. Although we know that children from lower socio-economic status (SES) and minority backgrounds exhibit more externalizing problems like hyperactivity, and internalizing problems like anxiety and depression, and that low-SES and minority children attend very different schools than high-SES and white children, the school’s role as a factor in the creation or maintenance of young children’s problems and in the actions attached to these negative behaviors is underdeveloped. And yet the school context is pivotal to examine because children’s behavior and emotions often become noted as problematic in school settings, and the process of deciding whether some form of action is necessary to ameliorate problems frequently begins with teacher input. Moreover, children’s social statuses (SES, race/ethnicity, and gender) interact with school processes in affecting outcomes. The conceptual framework undertaken here follows from an ecological, life course approach, which underscores the intersections among institutional domains such as family and school in examining developmental trajectories of children’s problem behavior and emotions. The study has the advantage of drawing upon an ongoing, highly relevant nationally representative longitudinal data source, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten cohort data (ECLS-K). The proposed inquiry derives its significance from multiple sources. It assesses an important and growing social problem that is connected to social disadvantage. It focuses on how school factors may influence problem behavior and how teachers and school contexts may influence whether children become evaluated by a health professional for their problems. Focusing on school factors may further our understanding of the relationships among SES, race, gender, and children’s problems. And finally, by examining young children, the study may inform policy on potential ameliorative efforts to prevent what often become long trajectories of problem behaviors.
