This dissertation is about distinctions, social status differences and contemporary pupil diversity. It addresses how Copenhagen school children in two different schools use language to handle their social everyday lives and how this organizing involves constructions and ascriptions of identities and social stereotypes. My research is driven by an interest in learning more about the experience of being part of today´s diverse school environments. Therefore, I approach my data with an emphasis on the participant perspective and focus analytically on the ways in which the participants in my study enact and construct social difference(s) through situated interaction. Based on an understanding of such practices and experiences as both shaped by and shaping society I relate my analyses to ongoing social stratification processes in the Danish society. A recurrent theme in my dissertation is the disclosure of a connection between the prevalent focus on ethnicity in public debates on schooling and social class relations and then the interplay between these relations of power and prestige and the practices that I analyze.
Key words: School children, youth, social interaction, linguistic and social difference, social class, power relations, discursive positionings, multicultural urban environments.