Comment on 'Class attitudes on dental treatment'

The article presents comments of the author on sociologist Stewart Dickson's article "Class attitudes to dental treatment," that was published in the June 1968 issue of the "British Journal of Sociology" appears to contain several serious deficiencies. Dickson is concerned to show that the middle class are more dentally conscious and attend the dentist more regularly than the working class. In the author's opinion, the study, for the following four reasons, does not conclusively demonstrate that. The study quite correctly told in the first sentence that social research into medical treatment has shown that class attitudes are extremely prevalent. This crucial statement in Dickson's preamble is not supported with any real evidence. Moreover, one is not told where to look in the periodical "Sociology in Medicine" for the material Dickson is referring to. The omission of more direct and impressive citations is a serious deficiency because Dickson proceeds to derive postulates from his relatively unsupported preamble.