Effects of school composition and school climate on teacher expectations of students: A multilevel analysis

• School environment is associated with teacher expectations of students.
• School composition has an independent effect on teacher expectations of students.
• School educational climate has an independent effect on teacher expectations.
• School composition has an indirect effect on teacher expectations via school climate.

Low teacher expectations negatively affect student outcomes and school effectiveness. The present study investigated the effect of educational climate and school socioeconomic, ethnic and academic composition on teacher expectations of student success. Multilevel analysis of teachers (N = 2666) nested within high schools (N = 71) demonstrated that school composition and school educational climate have an independent (a net) effect on teacher expectations. While academic composition had the greatest influence and suppressed the association between socioeconomic composition and the outcome, educational climate was also of importance. Additional mediation analyses revealed an indirect path of academic composition on teacher expectations via school educational climate.