ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches out some of the dimensions of variability and suggests ways in which they are socially structured and related to other significant processes. The first significant way in which the classrooms vary is in the likelihood of the children acquiring a reified identity and the possibility of the child having room to negotiate a satisfactory relationship with the teacher, where intersubjectivity and a high level and intensity of interaction is a feature of their relationship. This in its turn is related to the second dimension of variability which concerns the degree of fluidity within the classroom and the possibility for the child to be socially mobile within the main layers of the stratification system we have identified. Third, the potentialities for deviance within the classroom will vary from teacher to teacher. The fourth dimension of variability relates to what could be called the range of the stratification system or the distance between the lower and upper levels.
