CASE STUDIESlives are shaped by political and economic struc-
tures. They are also used to analyze historical
changes in capitalism and the consequences of the
changes for workers. For Marxist theorists, a ma-
jor change has been the rise of a new of society—
monopoly capitalism—dominated by multination-
al corporations. These theorists use case studies of
work settings to illustrate and analyze the effects of
monopoly capitalism on workers (Burawoy 1970).
Although it is not as well developed in sociolo-
gy as in anthropology, another focus of radical
case studies involves the social and personal conse-
quences of the international division of labor. The
studies are concerned with the ways in which
multinational corporations internationalize the pro-
duction process by exporting aspects of produc-
tion to Third World countries. Case studies of this
trend show the profound impact of global eco-
nomic changes for gender and family roles in
Third World countries (Ong 1987). Finally, radical
sociologists have used the case-study method to
analyze the ways in which capitalist institutions
and relationships are justified and perpetuated
by noneconomic institutions such as schools
(Willis 1977).
A second source for radical case studies is
feminist sociology. While it is diverse and includes
members who hold many different political phi-
losophies, all forms of feminist sociology are sensi-
tive to the politics of human relationships. A major
theme in feminist case studies involves the ways in
which women’s contributions to social relation-
ships and institutions go unseen and unacknowl-
edged. Feminist sociologists use case studies to call
attention to women’s contributions to society and
analyze the political implications of their invisibili-
ty. A related concern involves analyzing relation-
ships and activities that are typically treated as
apolitical and private matters as matters of public
concern. One way in which feminist sociologists
do so is by treating aspects of their own lives as
politically significant and making them matters for
sociological analysis (McCall 1993).
The case-study approach is central to the femi-
nist sociology of Dorothy E. Smith (1987). Smith
treats case studies as points of entry for studying
general social processes that shape persons’ expe-
riences and lives. Her approach to case studies
emphasizes how the seemingly insignificant activi-
ties of everyday life are related by general social
processes (such as patriarchy and market relation-
ships) and how they help to perpetuate the proc-
esses. Smith describes, for example, how the com-
monplace activity of dining in a restaurant is
organized within, and perpetuates, capitalist com-
modity relations. Smith’s analysis might also be
seen as an example of the general analytic strategy,
which Michael Burawoy (1998) calls the ‘‘extended
case method.’’ This approach to case studies in-
volves four major steps:- Researcher observations of, and immer-
sion in, a social setting, - Analysis of the researcher’s observations as
aspects of general social processes that
shape life in diverse contemporary social
settings, - Historicizing the observations and social
processes by showing how they are embed-
ded in historical forces that guide and
structure the evolution of capitalist so-
ciety, and - Linking the observations and analyses to
formal sociological theories that explain
the researcher’s initial observations and
their larger social and historical contexts.
This is one way in which case studies may be
used as a springboard for developing systematic,
general, and formal sociological analyses.CASE STUDIES OF REALITY
CONSTRUCTIONBasic to the case-study method and idiographic
interpretation is a concern for human values and
culture. Beginning in the 1960s, one focus of
this concern has been with the ways in which
social realities are produced in social interactions.
The new focus is generally based on the social
phenomenology of Alfred Schutz and ethnometh-
odology. While different in some ways, both are
concerned with the folk methods that people use
to construct meanings (Silverman 1975). For ex-
ample, Harold Garfinkel (1967), the founder of
ethnomethodology, used a case study of a patient
seeking a sex-change operation to analyze how we
orient to ourselves and others as men and women.Case studies of reality construction emphasize
how social realities are created, sustained, and