Classroom learning environments and the mental health of first grade children.

Sociological research focuses on how poverty, family, and neighborhood dynamics shape children's problems, but knowledge about how school is related to children's mental health is underdeveloped, despite its central presence in children's lives. Using a social structure and personality-stress contagion perspective, the authors use a nationally representative sample of first graders (N = 10,700) to assess how the classroom learning environment affects children's emotional and behavior problems. Children in more negative environments-such as classrooms with fewer material resources and whose teachers receive less respect from colleagues-have more learning, externalizing, interpersonal, and internalizing problems.