What is social stratification and to what extent does it impact on educational and professional achievement? School has been created to educate people, teach them how to read and how to write which was necessary to the economic and political development, and also to reduce social inequalities. Despite the fact that people are considered being equal, there are still social differences generated by social stratification. Social stratification is a hierarchical arrangement of individuals into divisions of power and wealth within a society. The most common term is social class, which are defined by inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions. This essay will first discuss the two theories which oppose about the question of education, then how social stratification influences educational and professional achievement by bringing different capitals, and finally, it will discuss the fact that educational and professional achievement is possible whatever the social class people belong to. The functionalist and the conflict theories are opposite about the question of education. They both agree about the fact that education is a beneficial contribution to an ordered society and that we live in a society with inequalities, but they both have different interpretations of it. The functionalist views claimed that schools are sorting students on a basis meritand that they networking by making interpersonal connection which may become personal or professional. They also think that the society is unfair but that it has to be like that. In the other side, the conflict theory completely disagrees. They think that education maintain the social inequality and preserves power of those who dominates society. They also believed that schools are sorting students along distinct and ethnic lines and that education train people of working class to accept their position as a lower class member of society. Both theories are confirmed but things are