In this article I use a double theoretical lens of Bourdieuian (1985, 1991) and Bakhtinian (1981, 1986) perspectives on social space and the dialogism of everyday literacy events to analyze and discuss a classroom literacy event. In this event, which takes place in a diversely populated classroom with a social justice language arts curriculum, four boys read aloud intertextual stories while managing the shifting power dynamics of their social hierarchies. At stake in this analysis are the following two understandings: first, of the ways the boys' texts reflected and produced their ideological positioning in relation to issues of gender, race, and class; and second, of the ways that these positionings were linked to their struggles for the symbolic "right" to speak in literacy events. Findings highlight the usefulness of such a combined theoretical framework for understanding the ways children's social hierarchy maintenance might reproduce social inequalities and might also allow them to struggle against hierarchies and claim new identities for themselves. (Contains 4 endnotes.)