  Circumstellar disks play an important role in many stages of the evolution of
stars. However, it is only possible to directly image circumstellar disks for a
few of the nearest stars. For massive stars, the situation is even more
difficult, as they are on average further away than the more numerous low mass
stars. Here, we discuss spectropolarimetry which is a technique that can reveal
the presence of disks on spatial scales of order stellar radii. It is therefore
extremely useful in studying disks around young stars, while the method has
prospects for quantitative modelling. In this review we will discuss the status
on the study of (accretion) disks around intermediate- to high mass pre-main
sequence stars and will concentrate on the linear spectropolarimetry aspect. We
wil make a brief excursion to observations of massive evolved stars where
spectropolarimetry has revealed the clumpy structure of stellar winds, and
conclude with a brief outlook.
