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This paper pulls together a diverse body of theoretical and empirical material bearing upon the relationship of educational systems to stratification systems. I argue that traditional approaches in the sociology of education are unable to account for recent findings emerging from the study of occupational recruitment and social mobility. A conflict model in which education is viewed as a dependent, rather than an independent, variable is better able to incorporate what would otherwise be anomalies and contradictions. Thus, educational systems may be seen as shaped by, rather than shaping, the dominant patterns of class inequality; and educational qualifactions legitimate rather than "cause" social mobility. Some implications of this perspective for research in Canada are discussed. Resume. Cet expose rammasse un corps divers de donnees theoriques et empiriques qui portent sur le rapport entre les systemes d'education et les systemes de stratification. C'est mon avis que les approches traditionelles dans la sociologie d'education ne reussissent pas a expliquer certaines trouvailles recentes sorties de l'etude du recrutment occupationale et de la mobilite sociale. Un modele base sur le conflit dans lequel on considere l'education comme un variable dependant plutot qu'independant peut mieux incorporer ce qui serait autrement anomalies et contradictions. Ainsi, on peut considerer que les systemes d'education sont influences par, plut6t qu'ils ne les influencent, les formes dominantes de l'inegalite de classe, et que la formation educationale legitime plut6t qu'elle ne la cause la mobilite sociale. Je discute egalement quelques implications de cette perspective pour la recherche.

Little is known about the nature and determinants of downward mobility. It has been suggested that downward movement implies the extension of meritocratic norms of selection and rejection. Alternatively, those who fall are seen as social casualties. A third explanation, that most middle-mass downward mobility represents a two generation process of status consolidation, is proposed here. Data for a sample of downwardly mobile urban British males and their fathers provide strong support for the status consolidation explanation. These data indicate that in the middle-mass there is, in fact, very little genuine downward mobility. Rather, most men who 'fall' come from risen working-class families, those which because of the upward mobility of one or both parents are peripheral rather than core members of the middle class. Sons were encouraged towards what fathers viewed as the less ambivalent status provided by skilled trades. In moving 'downwards' into these occupations sons were, in effect, fulfilling status and occupational aspirations of their fathers.