case studies Flashcards
what is a case study ?
a case study is an in-depth group into a particular group/ person, not just investigating one thing about them but instead trying to understand multiple aspects of their identity and life.
what is a secondary source
people or systems, other than the sociologist themselves, who have collected useful information.
what is secondary data
data that other people have created or gathered.
what are the two types of secondary data
- official stats
- documents ( public/personal/ historical )
what is an Ethnographies ?
when a society or culture is being studied over a long period by someone who understands a long participant research- they go and live with them.
what was a case study where Ethnographies used ?
- jolly amish studies
- Malinowski (1927) - studied South Pacific tribe who had little contact with the outside world, he studied their society and culture, he found teenagers on the island were committing insect but no one minded along as it was kept a secret. as soon as it was made public everyone negatively labelled the teenagers and they killed themselves.
what are 2 pros of using ethnographies
- valid data which would lead to valid versterhen.
- researcher could build rapport/ qualitative data.
what are the cons of using ethnographies ?
- unethical - influence
- not generalisable
what is life history ?
indepth unstructured interviews and personal documents about one person are collected over time to find out how their early life impacted their decisions later.
what are the pros of using life history ?
build rapport- researcher can get an unclose view.
empirical data
what are the cons of using life studies ?
not representative/ generalisable/ impractical.
what is a case study example when life history was used ?
landesco (1933) studied the life of a Chicago gang member to find out why he became a member and that it was like
what is a longitudinal study ?
when a researcher selects a sample group (cohort/panel) and data is repeatedly collected over a period of years, each data collection is referred to as a ‘wave’ or ‘sweep’
what is an example of a longitudinal study being used ?
the millennium cohort survey studies the lives of 19,000 people who were born in the millennium in order to track their lives, health, interests and aspirations
what are he pros of using a longitudinal study ?
- easy to repeat
- macro/ generalisable
what are the cons of using a longitudinal study ?
- only focused on 1 group/ practical issues/ funding- time
what are the strengths of public documents
easily accessible
wide range of variety
can be very in-depth
what are the limitations of public documents
not representative- could have a bias.
written with an audience in mind
30 year rule.
may be hard to interpret.
what did gewitz study ?
Gewitz studied ways in which schools responded to being part od an ‘education market’ this is where schools compete with one another for ‘customers’ for example GCSE grades might attract more students. She collected a range of school documents including brochures and prospectuses to see how schools adapt to competing in a ‘market’
what is coding/ content analysis
a technique for systematically describing written, spoken or visual communication. It turns qualitative data into a quantitative data (numerical) list of codes.
what’s two strength of using documents
theyre practical, they already exist so the researcher just has to find them, easy to double check your findings.
- qualitative, valid versterhen, interpretavists, would like e.g diaries and autobiographies.
what’s a limitation of using documents
- impractical because they often need interpreting and coding- time consuming-
- qualitative means its micro, hard to find trends or know if its representative- positivist would like.
