Wow! eBook
The SAGE Handbook of Case-Based Methods
Author(s): David Byrne (Author, Editor), Charles C Ragin (Author), Charles C. Ragin (Editor)
- Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
- Publication Date: 18 Jun. 2009
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 512 pages
- ISBN-10: 1412930510
- ISBN-13: 9781412930512
Book Description
Case-based methods have a long history in the social sciences. They are extensively used and raise many practical and theoretical questions. This book provides a comprehensive, critical examination of case-oriented research. It offers concrete proposals about the best research methods and provides an unparalleled guide to the emergence and complexity of the field.
The Handbook:
– Situates the reader in the essential theoretical and practical issues;
– Demonstrates the unity and diversity of case-oriented research through an examination of case-based methods;
– Distinguishes between case-based and case study research;
– Elucidates the philosophical issues around case based methods;
– Examines case-based work in the context of both social theory and theories of research methods.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Abstracts of Public Administration, Development, and Environment
′This book provides a fresh and stimulating approach to causal analysis in the social sciences. International experts provide not just the philosophical arguments for a case-based approach to research but also detailed chapters on: ′why-to′, ′when-to′ and ′how-to′. Traditional distinctions between qualitative and quantitative are rejected in favour of a case-based approach which is applicable across the social sciences and beyond.′
Professor Angela Dale, The University of Manchester
′This wide-ranging volume gives an excellent overview of diverse contemporary case study methods. Case study researchers of all kinds will find this book deepens their understanding of the methods they already use and broadens their knowledge of approaches they have not yet explored.′
Professor Andrew Bennett, Georgetown University
′An invaluable resource for social researchers who want to know how and why case studies are conducted. The contributors represent a rich stream of research active practitioners who provide an excellent guide to both qualitative and quantitative approaches to case based enquiry. Illustrations are drawn from a broad range of disciplines and provide a fertile terrain for application′
Professor Dick Wiggins, The Institute of Education, University of London
About the Author
Charles C. Ragin spent most of his youth in Texas and the southeastern United States. He attended the University of Texas at Austin as an undergraduate and received his BA degree in 1972 at the age of 19. That same year he began graduate work in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his PhD in 1975. From 1975 until 2001, he lived in the Midwest, teaching first at Indiana University and then at Northwestern University. He headed west in 2001, where he spent just over a decade at University of Arizona-Tucson. In 2012, he joined the faculty at the University of California-Irvine, where he is currently the Chancellor′s Professor of Sociology. He is best known for developing a methodological alternative to conventional research methods, using formal set-theoretic techniques for comparative research. His many publications address broad issues in politics and society, with topics ranging from the causes of ethnic political mobilization to the shaping of the welfare state in advanced capitalist countries. He has written several books including Intersectional Inequality: Race, Class, Test Scores and Poverty (with Peer Fiss, 2017). Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond (2008) Fuzzy-Set Social Science (2000). His book The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies (1987) won the 1989 Stein Rokkan Prize of the International Social Science Council of UNESCO. In 2014 he received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award of the American Sociological Association. He is married to Mary Driscoll, and they have two sons, Andrew and Daniel.
