The phrase "a popular conception that" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing widely held beliefs or ideas that are commonly accepted by the public.
Example: "There is a popular conception that success is solely determined by hard work, ignoring other factors such as opportunity and privilege."
Alternatives: "a common belief that" or "a widely held notion that".
Both scandals suggest that California's major police departments have a while to go before they can shake off their long-standing reputations for hiring racist cops –– a popular conception that has existed since the Rodney King riots and the OJ Simpson investigation.
"There is a popular conception that being a C.E.O.
And a popular conception that Britain is "full" receives some backing from statistics.
There is a popular conception that women played a peripheral role in the medieval castle household, and that it was dominated by the lord himself.
Once again, the majority's inference dovetailed a popular conception that only true perpetrators can obtain an intimate knowledge of the specific particulars of a crime, especially facts that were not publicly known.
There is a popular conception that you should use a needle to puncture a blister or pustule caused by an infection.
Despite the popular conception that firing a gun in an airplane poses a strong risk of making it crash, aviation experts say that with special bullets, serious damage to the plane is unlikely.
A new paper challenges the popular conception that this pigeon, which went extinct more than 300 years ago, was comically plump, instead arguing that it weighed just a bit more than a wild turkey.
"The media created this popular conception that we were all a gang together, and that was just not the case.
The recent deaths of 29 coal miners in West Virginia, of six construction workers at a natural gas plant in Connecticut in February and of five maintenance workers at a hydroelectric plant in Colorado in October 2007 have not shaken the popular conception that it is nuclear power that is dangerous.
In our study we have identified a number of factors associated with poor sleep, and challenged the popular conception that fatigue is the most important factor related to poor sleep in this population.
