CASE STUDIESWright, Erik Olin 1978 Class, Crisis, and the State. Lon-
don: New Left Books.
PATRICK H. MOONEYCASE STUDIES
There is a sense in which virtually every activity
that we associate with sociology might be called
‘‘case studies.’’ These activities include the genera-
tion of samples (which are made up of individual
cases) for statistical analysis, the use of empirical
examples (or cases) to illustrate aspects of general
sociological theories, and comparative analyses of
the interconnected events (again cases) that form
historical and cultural patterns. Indeed, Charles
Ragin and Howard S. Becker (1992) have edited an
anthology dedicated to defining case studies, enti-
tled What is a Case? Historically, the answer that
sociologists have usually given to this question is
that case studies are in-depth analyses of single or a
few communities, organizations, or persons’ lives.
They involve detailed and often subtle under-
standings of the social organization of everyday
life and persons’ experiences. Because they focus
on naturally occurring events and relationships
(not laboratory experiments or survey data), case
studies are sometimes described as naturalistic.
Case studies usually involve extensive interviews
about persons’ lives, or direct observation of com-
munity or organization members’ activities, or both.
The case-study approach is not unique to soci-
ology but is a general approach to social life that is
used by social scientists (especially anthropologists
and historians), psychotherapists and family thera-
pists, and journalists. All such uses of case studies
involve idiographic interpretation that emphasizes
how social action and relationships are influenced
by their social contexts. Case studies are unique
within sociology because they require that research-
ers immerse themselves in the lives and concerns
of the persons, communities, or organizations they
study, or all of these. While case studies are based
on the general scientific method and are intended
to advance the scientific goals of sociology, they
are also humanistic because they offer readers
insight into the concerns, values, and relationships
of persons making up diverse social worlds.
Social scientists use the understandings devel-
oped in case studies to introduce the general
public to the unique ways of life or problems of
communities, or both, to apply and build theories,
and to develop policy interventions concerned
with individual and social problems. Two classic
examples of how case studies may be used to
achieve these ends are Elliott Liebow’s (1967)
Tally’s Corner and Helen MacGill Hughes’s (1961)
Fantastic Lodge. Liebow’s book reports on his expe-
riences as a participant-observer within a poor,
male, African-American urban community. Liebow
describes the practical problems faced by these
men in living their everyday lives, and the practical
strategies they used to deal with life’s pressing
problems. The study challenged many of the pre-
vailing assumptions held by policy makers and
academics during the 1960s, and has been used to
reassess how the social service and mental health
needs of inner city, minority groups are best
addressed.
Hughes’s study, which is subtitled The Autobi-
ography of a Drug Addict, details the life experiences
of Janet Clark, a young white woman living in a
poor urban area. Hughes describes Ms. Clark as
speaking from a marginal urban world made up of
drugs and drug addicts, arrest and incarceration,
and the urban ‘‘sporting’’ life. The book raises
themes that were later systematized by Howard S.
Becker (1963)—the person who conducted the
interviews of Janet Clark—in developing his ver-
sion of the labeling approach to the sociology of
deviance. The labeling perspective emphasizes that
deviance is not just a matter of rule breaking, but is
always created through the official responses of
others. It has had profound and enduring implica-
tions for how sociologists define, study, and ana-
lyze societal responses to rule-breaking behavior.CASE STUDIES AND THE DEVELOPMENT
OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATESSociological case studies are most associated with
the ethnographic traditions established at the Uni-
versity of Chicago during the first half of the
twentieth century. The Chicago school’s emphasis
on case studies partly reflects the influence of
Robert E. Park, who joined the Sociology Depart-
ment in 1916 and later served as department chair.
Park taught his students that case studies should
emphasize how persons’ lives and the organization
of communities are shaped by general social proc-
esses and structures. For example, Park analyzed