Case Studies

Sociology: AQA A Level, topic 1.3.9

Case Studies and Life Histories

Both case studies and life histories are favoured by interpretivist researchers and tend to yield qualitative data.

A case study is an in-depth investigation of a single example.
- For example, Willis’s study of specific counter-school sub-cultures tried to explore using interviews at schools why children from certain social backgrounds got certain types of jobs.
Life histories are specific kind of case study that looks at the overall life of one individual or small group, often using in-depth unstructured interviews supported by personal documents, such as diaries and letters.

They can be useful to test wider theories, such as working class boys’ attitudes towards education.
They can be useful for generating new hypotheses or testing in further research or as an adjunct to other types of research.

They provide more valid in-depth detail and understanding from the point of view of the individual or group than can be obtained by positivist methods such as surveys and questionnaires.

They are not representative of the larger population, so findings cannot be generalised.
They may not be valid; life histories, for example, view the past from the standpoint of the present and facts might be misremembered.