The "Symbolic Capital" of Literacy

Jessica Zacher's idea within her dissertation essentially flushes out a year-long study (though she consistently reminds us that she has known most of the students for 5 years) about social hierarchy in Ms. Linda's 5th grade classroom.  Her article addresses a major point that resonates with Lad Tobin's article about Tom and the "Baseball Caps..." etc.  Zacher, herself, as well as Ms. Linda and several kids in this classroom have a previous attachment to this event.  This, of course, allows her a more personalized and inside look at years of progress in the students' lives.  She first starts off the essay almost solely focusing on Marcus although the middle of her essay is dedicated quite a bit to DeAndre, which shifts once the actual stories play a role with her evidence where Arturo becomes her primary subject.  Arturo fits the role as the Neitzschean tarantula who traps Marcus with his story "The Stolen Shoes."  Of course, just like any Neitzschean hero should, Marcus goes up to the classroom to defend himself and become the "superman" who saves his reputation.  Yet Ms. Linda never allows Marcus his potential and threatens him to seat down.  Zacher notices the obvious difference between her tone with an exasperated Marcus vs. her easier tone with a hubristic DeAndre who politely sits down.  Zacher repeats a lot of what happens to Marcus and the alpha-maleness of DeAndre, while also bringing in the middle man Arturo.  The one who is far-less mentioned (and almost invisible) is John, the guy who beats up Arturo following Marcus' command.
This essay is, in short, about "symbolic capital," which is a fancy Marxist way of saying: how students market themselves and one another.  Their social relationships determine a lot and their economic standing not only at home, but as the "richest with friends" AKA DeAndre are the most successful.  Zacher says her main subject authors are Bourdeau and Bahktin.  Even though this may be the case she often uses them sparingly, which make me wonder why she even mentions them?  I mean a lot of "representation" and other mimetic concepts can simply be found in Marx as well.
I found one more argument, which appears near the end of the piece where Zacher believes that the students probably use social hierarchies unintentionally.  I would disagree on that point and that especially the "gifted" student like DeAndre or the story-telling guru Arturo that they indeed know exactly what they are doing, that social struggle and class struggle are conscious in their minds.  Even though she seems to think their minds are not capable of going that far, she seems to think that what they read becomes a part of what they write themselves.  This, I am far more not inclined to agree.  I mean, the story is a story, and Arturo just explained the story as it happened; in other words she over reads some issues and undermines other problems.