The CASMIN project and the American dream

In this paper we respond to the critiques of our work undertaken under the auspices of the CASMIN project that are presented by Hout and Hauser and by Sørensen in preceding papers in this number. We treat in turn issues concerning data comparability and the class schema that we use as the basis for our analyses of mobility; our model of ‘core social fluidity’; and empirical results relevant to the evaluation of the FJH-hypothesis. In conclusion we point to certain conceptual presuppositions and related research interests which we would see as deeply rooted in the American tradition of work in the field of social stratification and mobility and which, we suggest, throw light on the nature of the reaction that our work has provoked.