Based on the author's in-depth research with children diagnosed with behavioural difficulties, this book provides a thorough critique of today's practices, examining:

• the traditional analyses of behavioural disorders and the making of disorderly children
• the influence of the 'expert knowledge' on behavioural disorders and its influence on schools, communities and new generations of teachers
• the effect of discourses of mental disorder on children and young people
• the increasing medicalisation of young children with drugs such as Ritalin.