The theory used in this study predicted that the individual who is "high" on the status characteristics will assume leadership as a function of a diffusion of the "high" evaluation to expectations about other competencies. In general, it was expected that differentially evaluated external status characteristics such as sex, race, and social class may have sufficient effect in determining classroom power and prestige orderings to bear examination. The data came from a controlled survey in which approximately one-hundred fifty low income sixth grade students were observed in their classrooms and administered a questionnaire, once at the beginning of the school year and again at the end of the first semester. The author attempted to find a relationship between an individual's power and prestige in the classroom, and that individual's attitudinal modernity. A positive relationship was found between student verbal initiation and student sense of occupational control, sense of modernism and expectation for success, whereas there is no relationship between student sense of political control and verbal initiation. (Author/BW)