ABSTRACT
The aim of social policies in promoting equality of outcome is that if the population were divided into groups along non-educational criteria then the achievement of those groups would be the same. Weber makes an important distinction between class and status, both aspects of the distribution of power within society. In Marx's analysis of society, class is a central concept. At best social class is a crude research instrument in whatever form it is operationalized. Social class is necessary to all societies as it reflects the relative importance of different positions in society to its survival, the relative rank of different positions being determined by the functional importance of the position together with the scarcity of personnel able to occupy that position. One of the specialized studies associated with the central study of mobility was that conducted by Floud, Halsey and Martin (1956), into the relative chance of selection into grammar schools in two regions of England.
