Administered an Arabic version of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) to 1,010 boys and 1,019 girls (aged 7-16 yrs) enrolled in public schools in Cairo, Egypt. It was hypothesized that, as a consequence of rapid social changes, Egyptian children would exhibit higher levels of depressive symptoms than children in Western societies. The Ss' mean scores were notably higher than the scores of comparable normative samples of children in Western countries, supporting the hypothesis. Girls in the upper grades received significantly higher CDI scores than their male counterparts. Results are discussed in a cross-cultural context.