Abstract
The erosion of the established collection mode in English education is producing a variety of unstable structural outcomes. All of these outcomes are conditioned by the progressive replacement of sponsorship by a covert contest pattern of educational selection. In the wake of experiments with integrated curricula, the most likely emergent pattern of educational transmission is a form of collection characterized by increased democratic representation of staff and students. The analysis draws upon a critical discussion of Basil Bernstein's approach to the classification and framing of educational knowledge; it exploits Thomas Kuhn's discussion of socialization into paradigms and Ralph Turner's treatment of sponsored and contest mobility; and it employs a distinction between processes of primary and secondary elaboration of the underlying principles which characterize a group's communication.
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