TY - JOUR A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Becker, Michael A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Maaz, Kai A1 - Neumann, Marko A1 - McElvany, Nele T1 - The link between teacher-assigned grades and classroom socioeconomic composition: The role of classroom behavior, motivation, and teacher characteristics JF - Contemporary educational psychology N2 - Teacher judgments in terms of grades, proficiency assessments, and recommending placement in ability groups can have important consequences for a child’s future educational path. Whether or not students’ sociodemographic background characteristics are systematically related to teacher judgments has been a controversial topic of discussion. Using data from the TIMSS-Transition Study (N = 3285 fourth graders) administered across 13 German federal states in the 2006–2007 school year and survey data from parents and teachers, we investigated whether or not the average classroom socioeconomic status is reflected in teacher judgments and also examined possible underlying processes. We also probed the role of teachers’ own socioeconomic backgrounds (at the age of 16) in their later susceptibility to differentially judge students from different socioeconomic backgrounds and in differentially composed classrooms. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that, after controlling for differences in achievement (as indicated by standardized tests), teachers’ judgments were associated with the classrooms’ socioeconomic composition, and this finding could not be attributed to the average levels of motivation or behavior in the classroom. Teachers were similarly likely to exhibit such differential judgments regardless of their own socioeconomic background. These findings are discussed in the context of their implications for educational policy. KW - Teacher judgments KW - Grading KW - Classroom composition KW - Teacher background KW - Multilevel modeling Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2016.06.004 SN - 0361-476X SN - 1090-2384 VL - 46 SP - 218 EP - 227 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER -