What Is a Case?: Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry

by Edited by Charles C. Ragin , Howard Saul Becker

• ISBN13: 9780521421881
• ISBN10: 0521421888
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-07-31
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The concept of the case is a basic feature of social science research and yet many questions about how a case should be defined, how cases should be selected and what the criteria are for a good case or set of cases are far from settled. Are cases pre-existing phenomena that need only be identified by the researcher before analysis can begin? Or are cases constructed during the course of research, only after analysis has revealed which features should be considered defining characteristics? Will cases be selected randomly from the total pool of available cases? Or will cases be chosen because of their unique qualities? These questions and many others are addressed by the contributors to this volume as they probe the nature of the case and the ways in which different understandings of what a case is affect the conduct and the results of research. The contributors find a good deal of common ground, and yet they also express strikingly different views on many key points. As Ragin argues and the contributions demonstrate, the work of any given researcher is often characterized by some hybrid of these basic approaches, and it is important to understand that most research involves multiple definitions and uses of cases, as both specific empirical phenomena and as general theoretical categories.

Table of Contents

Contributors	vii
Introduction: Cases of ``What is a Case?''	1	(18)
Charles C. Ragin
I Critiques of Conventional practices	19	(100)
Cases of cases ... of cases	21	(32)
Jennifer Platt
What do cases do? Some notes on activity in sociological analysis	53	(30)
Andrew Abbott
Cases are for identity, for explanation, or for control	83	(22)
Harrison C. White
Small N's and big conclusions: an examination of the reasoning in comparative studies based on a small number of cases	105	(14)
Stanley Lieberson
II Analyses of research experiences	119	(84)
Making the theoretical case	121	(18)
John Walton
Small N's and community case studies	139	(20)
Douglas Harper
Case studies: history or sociology?	159	(14)
Michel Wieviorka
Theory elaboration: the heuristics of case analysis	173	(30)
Diane Vaughan
III Reflections on ``What is a case?''	203	(24)
Cases, Causes, conjunctures, Stories, and imagery	205	(12)
Howard S. Becker
``Casing'' and the process of Social inquiry	217	(10)
Charles C. Ragin
Notes	227	(8)
Index	235