Many school systems in Europe practice some form of ability grouping, i.e. at some point in their school career students have to decide between certain educational tracks which eventually lead to different school leaving certificates. Compared to other European countries, ability grouping in Germany starts rather early. After fourth grade, students are sorted onto different types of schools with low, middle, high or a comprehensive form of education. In the decision process for the different types of schools, teachers play a crucial role as they formally recommend students. According to official regulations, the type of school teachers recommend students for should depend on students’ grades, their overall ability and personal features related to ability (KMK, 2006). Empirical studies show, however, that in addition to grades and other ability-related factors such as teachers’ perceptions of students’ reading ability, teachers’ recommendations also depend on students’ social abilities and social behavior as well as their social background (Anders, McElvany & Baumert 2010; Stahl, 2007; Stubbe, Bos & Euen, 2012). Using the German PIRLS and TIMSS data from 2011, we will analyze teachers’ answers to a scale assessing characteristics they take into account when recommending students’ for different types of schools after primary school. First analyses show that teachers consider grades as the most important factors for their recommendations. About 60 percent also named other ability-related factors as being very important, such as achievement motivation (62%) or concentration (59%). With the method of latent class analysis (Lazarsfeld & Henry, 2007) we expect to find distinct groups of teachers that consider a specific set of characteristics important for their recommendations. Examining effects of social background, we furthermore expect to find, that students’ socioeconomic status has an influence on which characteristics teachers consider important for school recommendations.

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