A study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of the Ramirez and Castaneda rating scale used to distinguish ethnic behaviors in schools and to generate a more comprehensive scale for identifying those behaviors. Two hundred and sixty two elementary school children and 39 teachers from Spanish bilingual and English as a Second Language classes in California participated in the study. A 108 item rating scale was developed by generating behavioral descriptions of social and affective characteristics of Hispanic children and by including items from the Ramirez and Castaneda scale. Each teacher completed eight ratings, four on Hispanic children and four on Anglo children. For the analysis of results, the Hispanic children were divided into three groups: Mexican-Americans, Latin-Americans, and United States born Spanish-surnamed. Results of a one-way analysis of variance indicated that 26 behavioral items and one Ramirez and Castaneda item differentiated among the four ethnic group means. Multivariate analysis showed that the Ramirez and Castaneda items failed to differentiate among the three Hispanic group means. (MK)