Product 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139727 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 278 pages

Review
“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

About the Author
John Gerring is currently associate 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 (1998), Social Science Methodology: A Criterial Framework (2001), Global Justice: A Prioritarian Manifesto (under review), and Centripetalism: A Theory of Democratic Governance (under review).

Customer Reviews

Very approachable and instructive
This books achieves its goal with exposing the various aspects of case study research from the design of the research project, to its final stages.

Principles and practices of case study research are explained clearly, with appropriate - but not excessive - jargon, which makes the reading totally manageable and instructive throughout.

In particular, it is interesting in detailing the various objectives which can be reached when different choices of case study research are made in the research project design.