`At first glance I felt that this is a book that I should buy. On reading a selection of the chapters I realized that I must buy it. Each of the four sections has chapter that I know I will want to read and many others that I will read. It is a book that will provide student and authors in Higher Education and practitioners with much food for thought. It also emphasizes the desperate need to cut through much of the polemic that abounds in this field and to return to argument based on carefully conducted empirical work? - Harry Daniels, Deputy Head of School and Director of Research, School of Education, University of Birmingham

`Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD) in schools can be defined in many ways. For example, EBD can be seen as: a set of problems that reside mainly within the individual student; as the result of interactions between social and psychological sub-systems, or as the product of professional discourses that create and maintain the very problems that they purport to identify and solve. Clough and Garner's Handbook of Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties sheds light on all of these perspectives and reveals the enormous complexity and diversity of what is termed EBD . In doing this, the book reveals itself to be both a scholarly and practical resource that will be indispensable to anyone seeking insight and direction for understanding and responding to EBD in the 21st century. Readers looking for off the cuff 'tips for teachers' or simplistic solutions will not find what they want in this book. Rather, the Handbook of Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties will appeal to readers who want to hear from writers who have genuine insight into the multi-faceted world of EBD, who have worthwhile things to say about the range of possible solution to this area of difficulty, and, regardless of differences that might appear between their theoretical positions, share a sense of d Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.