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Case study method: Key issues, key texts Edited by Roger Gomm, Martyn Hammersley & Peter Foster London: Sage Publications, 2000. Hardback (pound)50.00, ISBN 0-7619-6413-4; paperback (pound)18.99, ISBN 0-7619-6414-2
Case study is often portrayed as subjective, anecdotal and illustrative. It is seen as, at best, illustrating truths discovered by other, more conventional means. Dealing only with single instances, it fails the positivist test of generalisability. It is also seen as relatively easy to do, being impressionistic and ephemeral. It is the sort of thing that students might do to cut their teeth on research methods such as interviewing and observation. Professional researchers might also engage in it at the pilot study stage as an aid to formulating good research questions. In short, case study has not yet established its place as a front line means of knowledge production. Against this we must note that research agendas are built on the individual and collective experience of what is taken as problematic, a community's sense of what is needful of investigation. Moreover, much research is fundamentally marred by lack of initial clarity as to purpose, by a failure to identify what in practice is at issue. It is also worth noting that we learn principally through the concrete case and not through `applying generalisations'. Yet in a positivist world much educational rhetoric is built around generalisations such as `two in ten lessons (20 per cent) are poor or very poor' or `five per cent of schools are failing schools'. People give such generalisations credence even when their own experience contradicts them.
For all these reasons, the work under review is a serious and important contribution to thinking about research. The editors have brought together a seminal collection of articles under two broad headings. The first four papers deal with case study and generalisability. Stake, Lincoln and Guba, and Dunmoyer broadly subscribe to the view that case study is its own thing. The quest for generalisations is a red herring for them. We learn in other ways, through `thick description', `naturalistic generalisation' or 'transferability'. Schofield and the editors in their admirable chapter of cool summary keep the faith that case studies can provide the basis for the kind of knowledge that survey researchers aim at, something approaching law-like statements...