ABSTRACT
All the literal and metaphorical meanings of place are connected to the physical location of individuals in a social or behavioral ecology. The conceptual bases and strategies for clustering individuals in certain locations—the rationales for and the construction of ecodemes and niches—are the turning points for controversies about placement. An explicitly ecological conceptual model of emotional or behavioral disorders emerged in the 1960s, and contemporary psychological and behavioral technology suggests relatively sophisticated ecobehavioral analyses of the problems of maintaining individuals with emotional or behavioral disorders in specific social environments. Psychosocial history and sociobehavioral ecology suggest that where students go to school will be a matter of great concern to social scientists and to those who make educational policy. Racial segregation of the schools was the most egregious form of discrimination practiced in US public education until its abolition.
