Examining the normative and regulative effects of parental influence on the educational mobility of high school youth and the changing patterns of educational mobility, rural high school seniors in Ontonagon County, Michigan were surveyed in 1957/58 (N=254), 1968 (N=193), and 1974 (N=201). The key variables examined were: (1) college plans; (2) parental rapport (regulative parental influence measured by an attitudinal scale designed to elicit youth perceptions of parental rapport); (3) social class origin (normative parental influence as measured by the Duncan Socioeconomic Index for Occupations); (4) scholastic performance level (rank). Findings indicated: parental rapport set the stage for transmission of normative influences which affect educational mobility (especially for boys), independent of, yet in the same manner as the influence of social class; low class boys lacking strong parental rapport were far less likely to plan to go to college or to rank in the top half of their class, but among girls, the conditional effect of social class and parental rapport was considerably less apparent; the intervening effects of scholastic performance were substantial among boys and girls; the process of educational mobility was firmly woven into the socio-historical context of the times (e.g., during the 60's, the traditional barriers to educational mobility were somewhat mitigated, but by 1974, some barriers appeared to have been reconstructed). (JC)