A school effectiveness study was based on performance measures of pupils collected longitudinally in a representative sample of primary Greek schools of the city of Peireas, near Athens, in Greece. 1858 pupils (Greek and foreign/repatriated) enrolled in the 6th grade were assessed at the beginning and at the end of the school year 1999-2000 in language and in mathematics. 54 schools, 27 of which had two or more classrooms and 27 of which had only one classroom in the 6th grade (in total 83 classrooms) were sampled. Two of the research questions addressed in the thesis were the following1. Are there any attainment differences and/or any differences in progress made during the 6th grade between foreign/repatriated and native Greek pupils in a) mathematics and b) language? Are these differences reduced when the model further adjusts for additional variables such as pupils' social class, gender? In other words is there a joint effect of ethnicity, social class and gender? Are these differences alleviated in the presence of other variables such as the number of friends pupils have, whether they attended nursery school, and the hours of weekly homework undertaken? In other words is there any evidence of underachievement between foreign/repatriated and native Greek pupils at the end of the 6th grade of primary school?2. Are there any significant differences in attainment and in progress rates between foreign/repatriated pupils from various ethnic origins? Namely are there any differences between Albanian pupils, pupils from the democracies of ex-USSR, and pupils from 'other' ethnic groups (which are grouped in one category) and the majority group with respect to their performance in language and in mathematics? This study aims to show that there are substantial patterns of underachievement between pupils from ethnic minorities and Greek pupils and between pupils from lower and pupils from higher social class. Studies of that kind are very few in the Greek context.It was a longitudinal school effectiveness study, that employed normative performance based tests twice.Several other variables such as pupils' gender, social class, number of friends, nursery school attendance etc. were measured.The findings indicate that foreign/repatriated pupils lagged behind in their attainment compared with their Greek counterparts in both language and mathematics (although the gap was wider for language). Foreign and repatriated pupils made less progress than Greek pupils in mathematics, but no differences in progress were identified for language. For language the attainment of all three ethnic groups (Albanian pupils, pupils from the democracies of ex-USSR and pupils from 'other' ethnic origin) lagged behind the attainment of the majority group of Greek pupils. For mathematics, the attainment of Albanian pupils and of pupils from 'other' ethnic origin lagged behind the attainment of the majority group. 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