ABSTRACT
Goldthorpe set out his defence of the ‘conventional view’ of class analysis in 1983 in response to claims that this view represents a position of intellectual sexism. He has since elaborated his position, with some changes over time, in reply to the many critics who responded to his defence paper. He thinks that his critics are wrong on a number of counts: in their attack on the conventional view; in their view that their alternatives are better and constitute a case for abandoning the conventional view; and in that they fail to engage with the central thrust of the conventional view and his defence of it, sometimes by citing irrelevant empirical work.
