Case Studies

Case Studies

1. What are they?

   • An in-depth observation of a single example

2. Examples

   • Willis's study of specific counter-school sub-cultures tried to explore using interviews at schools why children from certain social backgrounds get certain types of jobs

3. Life Histories

   • Life histories are a specific type of case study that looks at the overall life of one individual or small group, often using in-depth unstructured interviews supported by personal documents, such as diaries and letters

4. Strengths

   • They can be used to test wider theories, such as working class boys' attitudes towards education
   • They can be useful for generating new hypotheses or testing in further research or as an adjunct to other types of research
   • They provide more valid, in-depth detail and understanding from the point of view of the individual or group than can be obtained by positivist methods such as surveys and questionnaires

5. Weaknesses

   • They are not representative of the larger population, so findings cannot be generalised
   • They may not be valid; life histories, for example, view the past from the standpoint of the present and facts may be misremembered