With the publishing of the results of the studies carried out by Coleman (1966) and Jencks et al. (1972) a broad discussion about school effectiveness started, because their findings gave a rather pessimistic view on possible effects of schools. They stated that schools only have little impact on student's performance much fewer than for example personal characteristics and family background. Later studies (eg. Rutter et al. 1979) proved that - using other criteria and describing variables (like for example the frequency of disciplinary measures or the quality of interaction between teacher and pupils) - student performance differs in dependence on the school they attend. This indicates that pupils´ performances (considering knowledge and social or motivational aspects) can be improved through reorganization of the school's environment. According to Scheerens & Bosker (1997) one of the general effectiveness-enhancing factors is school climate. The theoretical foundation of the term school climate is characterized by Murray's (1963) need-press-modell and it's extension by Stern (1970). School climate describes individual and collective perceptions of the school's environment. This paper will deal with some findings of a doctoral thesis focussing on school climate and it's impact on educational achievement of German fourth grade children. The data is based on the German part of the international student assessment study called 'Progress in International Reading Literacy Study PIRLS' which was carried out in 35 countries all over the world in 2001. About 145.000 pupils participated worldwide. For Germany we have got representative data of 9.733 children. Their parents, teachers and headmasters were questioned, too. That's why we are able to analyse school climate from different perspectives and views. The core questions of the dissertation will be: To what extend do the perspectives differ, can we find schools in which school climate is judged positively by all participating actors? Can we find schools that are negatively judged in general? Can we find reasons for this and does it have an impact on student performance or social competences? How do the different perspectives and aspects of school climate influence each other and can we find a structural modell to describe the relationships between these different perspectives and aspects?Because the organization of schools can be seen as a system of nested layers, multi-level-analysis has to be used to take these different levels into account. Where possible the results about school climate at German schools will be compared with other European countries that participated in the study. Though, part of the items used to describe school climate were only asked in the extended German background-questionnaire so that most of the results can only be applied to the German school system and German children.Coleman, J. S., Campbell, E. Q., Hobson, C. J., McPartland, J., Mood, A. M., Weinfeld, F. D., & York, R. L. (Eds): Equality of educational opportunity. Washington: National Center for Educational Statistics 1966Jencks, C.; Smith, M., Acland, H., Bane, M. J., Cohen, D., Gintis, H., Heyns, B. & Michelson, S.: Inequality: A reassessment of the effect of family and schooling in America. New York: Basic Books 1972Murray, H. A.: Explorations in personality. New York: Oxford University Press 1963Rutter, M., Maughan, B., Mortimore, P. & Ouston, J.: Fifteen thousand hours. Secondary schools and their effects on children. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1979Scheerens, J. ,& Bosker, R. J. The foundations of educational effectivenes. Oxford: Pergamon 1997Stern, G. G.: People in context. Measuring person-environment congruence in education and industry. New York: John Wiley 1970