/ Child PsychoL Puychiat. Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 471-484, 1989 0021-9630/89 J3.00 + 0.00 Printed in Great Britain. Pergamon Press pic © 1989 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry Epidemiology of Behavioral and Emotional Problems among Thai and American Children: Teacher Reports for Ages 6-11 John R. Weisz,* Somsong Suwanlert,^ Wanchai Chaiyasit,t Bahr Weiss,* Thomas M. Achenbach* and Donald Trevathan* Abstract—As a sequel to comparisons between reports by parents, we compared behavioral/emotional problems of 6-11-yr-old Thai and American children reported by teachers. These revealed higher ratings for Thai than for American children on nearly all problems showing significant cross-national differences. Thai children were rated higher on both overcontroUed and undercontrolled behavior and had more overcontroUed than undercontrolled problems (p < 0.0001), Boys were higher than girls on all 48 problems that showed significant sex differences. The findings underscore (1) the impact of culture on children's problems in the school setting and (2) the importance of surveying teacher as well as parent perspectives. Keywords: Child psychopathology, cross-cultural, epidemiological, behavioral and emotional problems Introduction Theory and research on psychopathology often imply cultural influences on disturbed behavior. Although most of the research has dealt with adults (see Al-Issa, t982; Marseila, 1979), culture may be influential well before the adult years. Culturally- mediated values and expectations, as well as the associated behavior of parents and other adults toward children, may influence the types of behavior problems.youngsters show. One result may be cross-national differences in the prevalence of various child behavior problems. On the other hand, it is possible that many child behavior problems result from such culture-independent forces as biological and perhaps cognitive development. We would therefore expect cross-national similarities in the prevalence of such problems. Accepted manuscript received 4 September 1988 Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S.A. ^Mental Health and Child Guidance Center, Bangkok, Thailand, '•University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, U,S,A. Requests for reprints to: Dr John Weisz, Psychology Department, Davie Hall CB #3270, University of North Carolina, Chapel HiU, NC 27599-3270, U.S.A, 471