Week 4 is about taking part in an historical argument.

We are going to focus on and argue about 'social class' - the topic that you are currently focusing on in your module.Social class is the division of society by social, cultural and ecnomic status. Concepts such as power, influence, inequality and prestige are often used to try and evaluate where individuals or groups of individuals are assessed, as assess themselves, in terms of their class position.

There are two resources in this week's folder - both iconic images relating to class in British society in the past. The first is a picture from 1937, the image and some information about its context can be found at:

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/toffs-toughs-photo-illustrates-class-divide-pre-war-britain-1937/

The second is a video clip which can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c

The video features John Cleese and the Two Ronnies from 1967 (an article which relates this sketch to class mobility in the early twenty-first century can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1499540/Classic-comedy-sketch-on-lack-of-social-mobility-has-the-last-laugh.html).

Once you have looked that these two sources, click on the link below to join the discussion board.

There are two questions that we would like you to answer:

1. In your view what value, if any, do the photograph and the video have as historical sources?
2. Are these sources now entirely 'historical', or, do you think that they are still 'iconic' of aspects of social class in contemporary Britain?

When you are in the discussion board:

- Ensure that you argue historically (prioritise your claims with evidence); and
- Follow the 'netiquette' guidlines that can be found at the following link - http://www.eshare.edgehill.ac.uk/id/document/4500.

We want to generate discussion through this exercise. Please aim to reply to make a post of your own and to reply to another student's post as well as . Members of the course team will contribute to the discussion also.