“…Something of the history of the topic can be glimpsed in its shifting terminologies: ‘maladjusted’ (Ministry of Education, 1955); ‘deviant’ (Hargreaves et al , 1975; Kaplan, 1980), ‘troublesome’ (Caspari, 1976), ‘disruptive’ (Tattum, 1982); ‘disaffected’ (Furlong, 1991; Sanders & Hendry, 1997), ‘anti‐social’ (Walker et al , 1995), ‘disengaged’ (Nardi & Steward, 2002). ‘Emotional and behavioural difficulties’ (EBD) has been favoured over the past decade (Chazan et al , 1994), possibly because it carries the combined authority of ‘legal, medical and educational connotations’ (Thomas, 2005, p. 60). The term has latterly been extended to ‘emotional, social and behavioural difficulties’ (EBSD).…”