Case Study Research
Principles and Practices
Published on 11. December 2006
Book
Hardback
278 pages
978-0-521-85928-8 (ISBN)
Description
Case Study Research: Principles and Practices aims to provide a general understanding of the case study method as well as specific tools for its successful implementation. These tools can be utilized in all fields where the case study method is prominent, including business, anthropology, communications, economics, education, medicine, political science, social work, and sociology. Topics include the definition of a 'case study,' the strengths and weaknesses of this distinctive method, strategies for choosing cases, an experimental template for understanding research design, and the role of singular observations in case study research. It is argued that a diversity of approaches - experimental, observational, qualitative, quantitative, ethnographic - may be successfully integrated into case study research. This book breaks down traditional boundaries between qualitative and quantitative, experimental and nonexperimental, positivist and interpretivist.
Reviews / Votes
"Case Study Research is a book with a mission. What John Gerring aims for, and contributes with great success, is a conceptual manifesto and foundational guidelines that demarcate the case study approach as a research methodology."-David Shulman, Lafayette College, American Anthropologist "Having read this book, readers will leave with a better understanding of the historic and present complexities within the case study method. Gerring provides us with concrete information about how and when this method is used, how it can be used better, and, despite all the controversy and doubt regarding this choice of method, that it continues to be useful within the social sciences."
-Marybeth C. Stalp, University of Northern Iowa, Contemporary Sociology "In this book the author provides a general understanding of the case study, as well as the tools and techniques necessary for its successful implementation."
-C.M. O'Brien, International Statistical Review "John Gerring, an Associate Professor of political science at Boston University, has written a thoughtful monograph on the case study method in social research...The book presents categorizations and typologies of case study types and techniques that are firmly rooted in previous research, yet the organization of the material is quite innovative."
-Edward Cohen, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare "[...]provocative new methodological treatise[...]This book does more than any in recent memory to bring case studies out of the shadows and into their proper, proudly central place in political science."
-Dan Slater, University of Chicago, Perspectives on Politics
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
15 Tables, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
490 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-85928-8 (9780521859288)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
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Additional editions
E-Book
03/2007
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E-Book
12/2006
Cambridge University Press
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Person
John Gerring (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1993) is Professor of Political Science at Boston University, where he teaches courses on methodology and comparative politics. His books include Party Ideologies in America, 1828-1996 (Cambridge University Press, 1998), Social Science Methodology: A Criterial Framework (Cambridge University Press, 2001), A Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2008), Concepts and Method: Giovanni Sartori and His Legacy (2009), Social Science Methodology: Tasks, Strategies, and Criteria (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Global Justice: A Prioritarian Manifesto (in process), and Democracy and Development: A Historical Perspective (in process). He served as a fellow of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), as a member of The National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Evaluation of USAID Programs to Support the Development of Democracy, as President of the American Political Science Association's Organized Section on Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, and is the current recipient of a grant from the National Science Foundation to collect historical data related to colonialism and long-term development.
Content
1. The conundrum of the case study; Part I. Thinking about Case Studies: 2. What is a case study?: the problem of definition; 3. What is a case study good for?: case study versus Large-N cross-case analysis; Part II. Doing Case Studies: 4. Preliminaries; 5. Techniques for choosing cases; 6. Internal validity: an experimental template; 7. Internal validity: singular observations; Epilogue: single-outcome studies.