TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wenger, Marina
A1  - Gärtner, Holger
A1  - Brunner, Martin
T1  - To what extent are characteristics of a school's student body, instructional quality, school quality, and school achievement interrelated?
JF  - School effectiveness and school improvement
N2  - The aim of educational policy should be to provide a good education to all students. Thus, a key question arises regarding the extent to which key characteristics of school composition (proportion of students with migration background, socioeconomic status [SES], prior school achievement, and achievement heterogeneity), instructional quality, school quality, and later school achievement are interrelated. The present study addressed this research question by examining school inspection data, official school statistics, and large-scale achievement data from all primary schools in Berlin, Germany (N = 343). The results of correlation and path analyses showed that school composition (average SES, average prior school achievement) predicted components of instructional quality (SES: classroom management, cognitive activation; achievement: cognitive activation, individual learning support). The relation between school composition characteristics and most components of school quality was close to zero. Contrary to our expectations, only the effect of school SES on later achievement was mediated by instructional quality.
KW  - school composition
KW  - instructional quality
KW  - school quality
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2020.1754243
SN  - 0924-3453
SN  - 1744-5124
VL  - 31
IS  - 4
SP  - 548
EP  - 575
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  -