ABSTRACT
The possibility of using material based upon current events or literary sources as a stimulus in investigating class imagery and beliefs remains. Attempting to obtain reflexive accounts from workers about past events which would relate to class imagery and class beliefs is another possible line of approach. The intellectual framing of research into class imagery is therefore of particular importance, and several different lines of approach having been suggested. There is relatively little data on the class consciousness or class imagery of the rank-and-file union member. There is therefore very great scope for sociologically informed historical research into class imagery, perhaps by way of the history of particular occupations or particular localities. More sweeping criticisms of the use of ideal types have also been made, suggesting either that their use in the study of class imagery forces data into pre-existing categories or that they fail to provide a sufficient range of theoretical alternatives.
