For years, the research and policy focus on Black students with emotional disturbance (ED) has been on racial disproportionality. The disproportionality issue has sparked professional debate and raised major questions about racial bias, cultural fairness, appropriateness of assessment instruments, the adequacy of special education programs, poverty, exposure to risk factors, and research approaches. Unfortunately, minimal progress has been made on understanding the overrepresentation of Black students in ED programs. The purpose of the present study was to initiate research on the emotional and behavioral functioning of Black students with ED, by comparing the teacher-completed ratings from the Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance for Black students with ED (n = 139), Black students without ED (n = 421), White students with ED (n = 271), and White students without ED (n = 1,218). The results demonstrated that (a) Black students with ED were judged to demonstrate significantly higher levels of emotional and behavioral problems than their Black and White peers without ED, and (b) Black students with ED differed minimally from White students with ED. Research limitations, directions for future research, and implications for assessment and service delivery are discussed.

多年来，对患有情绪障碍 (ED) 的黑人学生的研究和政策重点一直放在种族不成比例上。不成比例的问题引发了专业辩论，并提出了关于种族偏见、文化公平、评估工具的适当性、特殊教育计划的充分性、贫困、暴露于风险因素和研究方法等主要问题。不幸的是，在理解 ED 项目中黑人学生人数过多方面取得的进展微乎其微。本研究的目的是通过比较教师完成的ED 黑人学生情绪障碍评估量表( n= 139)、没有 ED 的黑人学生 ( n = 421)、有 ED 的白人学生 ( n = 271) 和没有 ED 的白人学生 ( n = 1,218)。结果表明，（a）患有 ED 的黑人学生被认为表现出比没有 ED 的黑人和白人同龄人显着更高水平的情绪和行为问题，并且（b）患有 ED 的黑人学生与患有 ED 的白人学生差别很小。讨论了研究局限性、未来研究的方向以及对评估和服务提供的影响。