Social Statuses, Schools, and Children’s Problems

Melissa Milkie’s research examines how children’s behavioral and emotional problems vary by the child’s socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, gender, and school context.  It also examines the part played by school context in whether children are evaluated by a health professional for their behavioral and emotional problems. 

Milkie’s work illustrates relationships across social status, classroom, and school contexts for children’s mental health. Schools as settings and social institutions have a relatively large influence on whether children are evaluated for emotional and attention problems.  Despite children of minority and lower socioeconomic status exhibiting more behavioral problems, majority-race and high-income children are more likely to be evaluated by professionals. 

This research builds on previous studies of children’s behavior and evaluation for mental health problems as well as studies of the quality of schools and children’s mental health. Overall, children’s emotional and behavioral problems vary significantly by gender, race and ethnicity, and social class. The school itself as a setting, made up of teachers, students, administrators, in the context of racial, ethnic and economic statuses, can also make a difference.