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Chapter contents. Approaches to case study research and a brief history
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CHAPTER CONTENTS
· Introduction 476
· Approaches to Case Study Research and a Brief History 476
· Key Terms 478
· Case Selection 481
· Strengths and Limits of Case Study Research: What Do You Want to Know? 483
· Case Study, Comparative Case Research and Comparative Criminology 483
· Case Studies in Action: Some Classics 485
· Case Studies in Action: Contemporary Criminology 486
¡ Crime and disorder 486
¡ Justice 487
· Comparative Criminology 490
· Summary and Review 491
· Study Questions and Activities for Students 492
· Suggestions for Further Reading 492
· References 493
GLOSSARY TERMS
case study deductive observation(s) variable
spatial variation temporal variation synchronic diachronic
USING CASE STUDY METHODS IN CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Kathleen Daly
INTRODUCTION
Case studies – broadly defined – have featured in human society for millennia, although the term ‘case study’ was first used in a scientific sense in the early twentieth century (Gerring, 2017: xvii–viii, and see pp. 17–19 for a survey of the history of case study research). Case study research was common in the US sociological literature until the 1940s when survey research became more popular (Platt, 1992). Interest in case study research re-emerged in the 1980s as researchers recognized that statistical analyses alone could not explain the complexity and context-dependent qualities of social phenomena, and that case study research could do it better. Despite its current popularity, case study research is not well understood by social science practitioners, and it is given superficial treatment in introductory texts for university students.
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This chapter gives prominence to Chicago School sociology because it shaped the formative years of criminology during the first half of the twentieth century. However, we must bear in mind that as an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, criminology has been influenced by other disciplines and key texts in developing case study research. Case study research is used throughout the social sciences, and in law, business and medicine. I illustrate the differing ways it has been used in criminology and related fields. The chapter will compare different approaches to case study research, sketch its historical development in US sociology, and define key terms. A potential point of confusion, which I clarify, is how case study research relates to comparative case study research and to comparative criminology.
APPROACHES TO CASE STUDY RESEARCH AND A BRIEF HISTORY
Elman, Gerring and Mahoney (2016: 376) size up the literature on case study research well: ‘[it] is so abundant and diverse that it defies description’. This poses problems for those new to the area. There is no single authoritative text in the social sciences to rely on as a ‘go to’ source. The major texts do not speak with one voice, a problem amplified by differing disciplinary concerns and preferred approaches to knowledge building. It is important to address knowledge-building preferences at the start because all else flows from them, and, in particular, how to define and carry out case study research.
These preferences are apparent in Yazan’s (2015) comparison of three case study texts: Yin (1984/1994/2014), Merriam (1998) and Stake (1995). I sketch Yazan’s argu- ment, relate it to the formative years of case study research in sociology, and demonstrate how the early ideas have threaded their way into contemporary criminology.
Of the three authors in Yazan’s analysis, Yin is the most well known and cited. In 1984, he published a highly influential text, which put forth a method for case study research (a fifth edition was published in 2014). His approach to case study research is
positivist; he recommends a well-prepared design at the start of the research, which focuses on testing a theory or hypothesis. Yin’s largely deductive approach to case study research is well suited to programme or policy evaluation, which is his area of expertise. By comparison, the texts by Merriam and Stake view knowledge as ‘constructed rather than discovered’ and ‘constructed by individuals acting within their social worlds’ (Yazan, 2015: 137). They take a constructivist or interpretivist approach to knowledge and prob- lematize precisely what Yin takes for granted. Furthermore, Merriam and Stake prefer a flexible design that may change as the research evolves. Yazan compares the authors on other dimensions, but my summary is sufficient to show that case study researchers have
different assumptions about how best to study the social world and build knowledge.
Several points can be drawn for case study research historically and in its use today. First, Yin was a pioneer in the 1980s in advancing a systematic method for case study research, and many continue to cite him as an authority in criminology. However, his advice may have ‘come at the expense’ of a more pluralistic understanding of what case studies can offer: contextualized explanations and divergent meanings that actors may have of a situation or case (Piekkari et al., 2010: 3). Moreover, case studies can be used not only to test theories and hypotheses, but also to generate them. At a minimum, researchers may need to be explicit about their approach to knowledge building and the different ‘quality criteria by which to judge it’ (2010: 3).
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Second, Yin’s method embodies a narrower meaning of case study research, compared to the way it was practised in the 1920s and 1930s by researchers asso- ciated with the University of Chicago. As elucidated by Becker (1999), the founders were Albion Small, W. I. Thomas and George Herbert Mead, with the next genera- tion being Robert E. Park, E. W. Burgess, Everett C. Hughes and Herbert Blumer. What came to be called the Chicago School was eclectic, not unified (Becker, 1999), but, in general, case studies of individuals, groups and neighbourhoods focused on social contexts and actors’ life worlds in their own words. For example,
W. Lloyd Warner, who was trained as a social anthropologist and had carried out ethnographic research in an Australian Indigenous community, and then later, US communities and cities, was a significant presence for Chicago School students. He guided William Foote Whyte (then a PhD student), whose research on a Boston Italian neighbourhood became a case study classic in sociology and criminology (Whyte, 1943/1981). Research by Warner, Whyte and others associated with the Chicago School centred on ‘personal meanings’ and knowledge gained by inductive reasoning, methods not recommended by Yin (Platt, 1992: 45–6). At the same time and closer to Yin’s concerns, many Chicago School researchers grappled with two problems: how to describe and compare case studies in an ‘objective way’ and how to ‘generalize from case studies to a wider population’ (Platt, 1992: 22).
In the 1950s, what came to be called the Second Chicago School emerged, which blended field research (case studies) with social constructivism. Among its practition- ers was Howard Becker, who became a leading scholar in social deviance, art and culture (Plummer, 2003). In the late 1980s, Becker and Charles Ragin ran a work- shop to discuss the question, ‘what is a case? ’. Ragin hoped the group would come
to agreement on an answer, but he said that Becker ‘persistently pulled the rug out from any possible consensus’ (Ragin, 1992: 5). Instead, ‘Becker wanted to make researchers continually ask the question, “What is this a case of ? ”’ (1992: 4). This is a crucial question for case study researchers. From Becker’s perspective, the answer may not be known until the conclusion of the research when writing up the findings. He believed that ‘the less sure that researchers are of their answers [at the outset of the research], the better their research may be’ (p. 6).
Third, the legacy of the Chicago School of the 1920s and 1930s is more multi- faceted than what is conveyed in introductory texts. Although its members launched the ‘case study method’ in sociology, in fact there was no discernible method per se. Instead, case study research was loosely related to types of evidence: ‘life history data … personal documents, unstructured interviews … any attempt at holistic study, and non- quantitative data analysis’, which Platt (1992: 37) concluded had ‘neither a necessary logical nor a regular empirical connection with each other’. Moreover, few of the exemplary texts hewed to the ideal type of case study. In addition, although ‘the “case study method” was often contrasted with “statistical method” [by members of the Chicago School] … many argued that both were useful and acceptable’ (Platt, 1992: 38). Thus, in practice, the ‘distinction between case study and statistical method … blurred’ (Platt, 1992: 26) because Chicago School texts drew upon both. However, a shift occurred in the 1940s when an increasing number of sociologists, including those associated with the Chicago School, began to rely on surveys and statistical analyses of social phenomena (Gerring, 2007; Platt, 1992).
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In the 1980s, a new generation of case study researchers emerged. They sought to
sharpen the scientific value of case study research and give it standing as a substantial method in the social sciences. It is striking to see that many of the major methods texts – George and Bennett (2005), Gerring (2007/2017), Ragin (1987/2014) and Yin (1984/1994/2014) – challenge the qualitative–quantitative dichotomy in the social sciences and seek ways to move past it.
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