ABSTRACT
The analysis of social stratification in the classroom provides an interesting opportunity to examine the usefulness of a social phenomenological perspective. The analysis will initially proceed ideal typically. A useful entry into the analysis is to note two significant paradoxes. The first paradox is that all three teachers claim that their approach is child centred and oriented to the needs and requirements of individual pupils. Whereas all three teachers would claim to be supporters of the egalitarian principle that all pupils are of equal worth. The idea of self-fulfilling prophecy has come to acquire a central role in certain types of sociological understanding particularly in situationalist deviancy theory where labelling and its consequences are investigated. To make a distinction between social or symbolic constraints, on the one hand, and physical constraints on the other, may suggest a dualism. It is recognized that many physical features in the social context of the teacher's practice are artifacts.
