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Three major sections compose this paper: (1) education, equality, and mobility; (2) social origin and educational experience; (3) educational antecedents of occupational groups. Basically the paper discusses where Britain stands in what has been described as the 'century of the child' and in a period of high educational aspirations and hopes for social equality through the reconstruction of schooling. While section 1 discusses fundamental issues such as political choice and social philosophy, section 2 reports on an empirical study that sheds light on these issues, reporting on a comparison of the educational experience of the adult male population of England and Wales in 1949 and in 1972. Specific topics addressed here are the private school sector, the state secondary school system, status origin and schooling, status origin and further education, and origin, schooling, and university. The last section examines the educational antecedents of the hierarchy of occupational groups in British society in terms of the 'tightening bond' thesis. A supporting document commenting on Halsey's paper appraises the conceptual framework used by Halsey, and important questions that can be raised about the conception of social mobility used in his analysis are addressed -- the concept of status, two aspects of social mobility, and the two roles of education in social mobility. (Author/AM)