PATTERNS OF HOME AND SCHOOL BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS IN RURAL AND URBAN SETTINGS

This study examined the cross-situational patterns of behavior problem s shown by children in rural and urban communities at school entry. Be havior problems exhibited in home settings were not expected to vary s ignificantly across urban and rural settings. In contrast, it was anti cipated that child behavior at school would be heavily influenced by t he increased exposure to aggressive models and deviant peer support ex perienced by children in urban as compared to rural schools, leading t o higher rates of school conduct problems for children in urban settin gs. Statistical comparisons of the patterns of behavior problems shown by representative samples of 89 rural and 221 urban children provided support for these hypotheses, as significant rural-urban differences emerged in school and not in home settings. Cross-situational patterns of behavior problems also varied across setting, with home-only patte rns of problems characterizing more children at the rural site and sch ool-only patterns of behavior problems characterizing more children at the urban sites. In addition, whereas externalizing behavior was the primary school problem exhibited by urban children, rural children dis played significantly higher rates of internalizing problems at school. The implications of these results are discussed for developmental mod els of behavior problems and for preventive interventions. (C) 1998 So ciety for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Scienc e Ltd.