Abstract
This article describes the results of a study into the relations between school, teacher, class, and student characteristics in Dutch elementary schools. Central to the study were the socio-ethnic background of the students, socio-ethnic class composition, language and math test results, teaching approach, and consistency of teaching approach within the school. The major question was whether student achievement levels vary according to the consistency of the teaching approach after controlling for socio-ethnic background at both the individual and class levels. The sample consisted of 7,410 grade 8 students and in total 1,714 teachers from 567 schools. The results of multilevel analyses showed consistency of teaching approach to be of no relevance to achievement levels. The most important factor appeared to be the socio-ethnic background of the students. Ethnic minority students perform less well than native Dutch working-class students, who in turn perform less well than the other students studied. In addition, students in classes with a relatively high number of so-called disadvantaged students perform less well independent of their individual socio-ethnic background.
