Reading and listening progress in segregated primary schools: Does ethnic and socioeconomic classroom composition matter? Lisa Dewulf a, *, Johan van Braak a and Mieke Van Houtte b a Department of Educational Studies, Ghent University, Belgium; b Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Belgium This study aimed to investigate the relationship of classroom composition factors with reading and listening comprehension achievement and progress in socially and ethnically segregated primary schools in Flanders (Belgium). Specifically, using a three-level multivariate repeated measures anal- ysis, it examined the association of reading and listening achievement and progress with ethnic diversity, the proportion of non-native students and the average socioeconomic status of the class, taking into account student characteristics. At the beginning and end of the school year, reading tests, listening tests and questionnaires were administered to a sample of 7- and 8-year-old students (n= 683) in 42 second-grade classes. Students’ listening comprehension achievement at the begin- ning of the school year was negatively related to having a home language other than the language of instruction and to classes with a high proportion of non-native students. However, progress in lis- tening comprehension was not significantly associated with any student or classroom composition factors. Students whose mothers had a lower level of education performed lower on reading com- prehension at the beginning of the school year, while at the end of the school year students whose mothers had a higher level of education were at a greater disadvantage. Limitations of this study and directions for future research are discussed. Keywords: school segregation; classroom composition; reading progress; listening progress Introduction The attainment of language skills is broadly accepted as one of the most essential out- comes of education, and both reading and listening skills have been acknowledged as critical factors for school success (Reis et al., 2011; Jafari & Hashim, 2012). A signifi- cant gap remains between the reading and listening performance of students from higher and lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and ethnic minority students are more likely to have a lower socioeconomic status (Reis et al., 2011). As children from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds are unevenly distributed across schools, minority groups often end up together in socially and ethnically segregated schools, in which low-achieving students from *Corresponding author. Department of Educational Studies, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. E-mail: lisa.dewulf@ugent.be © 2017 British Educational Research Association British Educational Research Journal Vol. , No. ,  2017, pp. – DOI: 10.1002/berj.3292