Nowadays, there are a lot of groups of pupils who are in risk of school exclusion. One of these groups comprises pupils with behavioural problems due to their personal characteristics and the lack of educative responses for them. The relationship between "behavioural problems" and "low academic achievement" has kept sound in literature. Therefore, we wanted check by ourselves if this relationship is maintained in relation to specific behavioural profiles and factors. Besides, we would like to detect other variables that may be influencing this relationship.This paper exposes a study whose aim is to identify and characterise the behavioural problems of pupils in Secondary Compulsory education in several schools in Madrid (Spain). The study's results were compared to other similar European studies. The objectives of this study include firstly, to know and identify the behavioural problems of pupils in compulsory secondary education. Secondly, to analyse the relationship between academic achievement and behavioural problems and lastly, to procure a more precise knowledge and assessment about the relationship between behavioural problems, academic achievement and learning motivation.The sample comprised a total of 304 subjects who entered the study (151 boys and 153 girls) between the ages of 12 and 18 years, drawn from public schools in areas of Madrid (Spain).The tool applied was the Youth Self Report Form (Achembach, 1991) in order to know the behavioural problems in adolescents. The YSR consists of two parts. The first contains a social competence scale exploring social activities, social interests, and the average of performance in seven academic subjects. The second part contains 112 items, 96 of which assess problem behaviours and 16 of which refer to socially desirable behaviours. The eight narrowband or first order syndromes found by Achenbach were Withdrawn, Somatic Complaints, Anxious/Depressed, Social Problems, Thought Problems, Attention Problems, Delinquent Behaviour, and Aggressive Behaviour. The broadband or second-order factors refer to two behaviour profiles, termed Internalising and ExternalisingBesides, in order to assess the academic achievement and personal variables an inventory was made ad hoc and to investigate the learning motivation the learning motivation questionnaire (MAPE II, Alonso Tapia, 1992) was used.Gender differences on the Total YSR-score were similar across different cultures such as the Swedish adolescent Greek, Russian, Finnish, Norwegian, and Irish. Women showed statistically significant differences in the Total of the behavioral problems.Our results are very relevant to put into action, the matter of behavioural problems becoming evident in each gender in a different way could point the need to adapt detection and educational intervention criterions by sex and behavioural factors.Lastly, age wise significant differences were also found concerning to internalizing problems, thought problems, social problems and depression.