The Popitz study uniquely classified West German workers by their images of society.

Evidence

The Mannesmann study was peculiar in that, in the introduction, it held open the possibility that class theory would have lasting validity, while in the text itself mention of the various forms in which class theory had survived, or of other ideas that had taken its place, was virtually omitted. By contrast, the Popitz study’s unconditional rejection of class theory formed the basis for a detailed consideration of workers’ ideas and arguments, of the stereotypes they used and of the relevance of these for social theory'. The study, which opened with four long quotations from reports by four workers about their worklive recordings, as it wereconcluded, after extensive qualitative analyses, by presenting a great many pithy quotations in a differentiated typology of the images of society found among the workers who had been questionedor, rather, a typology of the workers on the basis of their images of society. This was an impressive, and in the West Germany of the 1950s unique, empirically based phenomenology of the various ways in which workers reacted to the conditions of their existence as workers, to the condition ouvrière’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2106

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the class-theory debates of the Frankfurt School and to Bourdieu’s later work on class habitus and social representation. — connects to: Many West German workers saw employer-employee relations as irreconcilable polarity. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2101

Broader Connections

• Many West German workers saw employer-employee relations as irreconcilable polarity. #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2101