Comparative Case Studies: An Innovative Approach

Authors

  • Lesley Bartlett University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Frances Vavrus University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7577/njcie.1929

Keywords:

case study, research methods, comparison, context

Abstract

What is a case study and what is it good for? In this article, we argue for a new approach—the comparative case study approach—that attends simultaneously to macro, meso, and micro dimensions of case-based research. The approach engages two logics of comparison: first, the more common compare and contrast; and second, a ‘tracing across’ sites or scales. As we explicate our approach, we also contrast it to traditional case study research. We contend that new approaches are necessitated by conceptual shifts in the social sciences, specifically in relation to culture, context, space, place, and comparison itself. We propose that comparative case studies should attend to three axes: horizontal, vertical, and transversal comparison. We conclude by arguing that this revision has the potential to strengthen and enhance case study research in Comparative and International Education, clarifying the unique contributions of qualitative research.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biographies

Lesley Bartlett, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Professor, Department of Educational Policy Studies. Her research and teaching interests include migration studies, literacy studies, anthropology of education, and research methods.

Frances Vavrus, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Professor, Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development. Her research and teaching interests consider the transformative potential and limitations of education in sub-Saharan Africa.

References

Anderson-Levitt, K. M. (2012). Complicating the concept of culture. Comparative Education, 48(4), 441-454. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2011.634285

Bartlett, L., & Vavrus, F. (2017). Rethinking case study research: A comparative approach. New York: Routledge.

Babbie, E. (2012). The practice of social research (13th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Thomson Learning Inc.

Becker, H. S. (2009). How to find out how to do qualitative research. International Journal of Communication, 3, 545-553.

Bourdieu, P. (1990). In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bray, M., & Thomas, R. M. (1995). Levels of comparison in educational studies: Different insights from different literatures and the value of multilevel analyses. Harvard Educational Review, 65(3), 472-491. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.65.3.g3228437224v4877

Bray, M., Adamson, M., & Mason M. (2014). Comparative Education Research: Approaches and Methods (2nd ed.). Hong Kong: CERC Studies in Comparative Education, Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05594-7

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32(7), 513. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.32.7.513

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human development. In M. Gauvain & M. Cole (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education, Vol. 3, 2nd ed. (pp. 37-43). New York: Freeman.

Burawoy, M., Burton, A., Ferguson, A., Fox, K., Gamson, J., Gajrtrell, N., Hurst, L., Kurzman, C., Salzinger, L., Schiffman, J., & Ui, S. (1991). Ethnography Unbound. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Carney, S. (2009). Negotiating Policy in an Age of Globalization: Exploring Educational “Policyscapes” in Denmark, Nepal, and China. Comparative Education Review, 53(1), 63-88. https://doi.org/10.1086/593152

Cole, M. (1996). Culture in mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Creswell, J. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Duranti, A., & Goodwin, C. (1992). Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. London: Cambridge University Press.

Dyson, A. H., & Genishi, C. (2005). On the case: Approaches to language and literacy research. New York: Teachers College Press.

Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Learning Approach to Developmental Research. Helsinki: Orienta Konsultit.

Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R., & Punamaki, R. L. (Eds.). (1999). Perspectives on Activity Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812774

Erickson, F. (2011). Culture. In B. A. U. Levinson & M. Pollock (Eds.), A companion to the anthropology of education (pp. 25-33). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444396713.ch2

Falzon, M. (2009). Introduction. In M. Falzon (Ed.), Multi-sited ethnography: Theory, praxis and locality in contemporary research (pp. 1-24). Surrey, UK: Ashgate.

Flyvberg, B. (2011). Case study. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research (4th ed.) (pp. 301-316). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Garfinkel, H. (1984). Studies in ethnomethodology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology’s program: Working out Durkheim’s aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littleford.

Geertz, C. (1996). Afterword. In S. Feld & K. H. Basso (Eds.), Senses of place (pp. 259-262). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105-117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.1992.7.1.02a00020

Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1992). Beyond ‘culture’: Space, identity, and the politics of difference. Cultural Anthropology 7, 6-23. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822382089

Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1997) Culture, power, place: Ethnography at the end of an era. In A. Gupta & J. Ferguson (Eds.), Culture, power, place: Explorations in critical anthropology (pp. 1–32). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822382089

Hannerz, U. (2006). Studying down, up, sideways, through, backwards, forwards, away and at home: Reflections on the field worries of an expansive discipline. In S. M. Coleman & P. Collins (Eds.), Locating the field: Space, place and context in anthropology (pp. 23-41). Oxford, UK: Berg.

Heath, S. B., & Street, B. (2008). On ethnography: Approaches to language and literacy research. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hoffman, D. (1999). Culture and comparative education: Toward decentering and recentering the discourse. Comparative Education Review, 43(4), 464-488. https://doi.org/10.1086/447580

Larsen, M., & Beech, J. (2014). Spatial theorizing in comparative and international education research. Comparative Education Review, 58(2), 191-214. https://doi.org/10.1086/675499

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Leander, K., & Sheehy, M. (Eds.). (2004). Spatializing literacy research and practice. New York: Peter Lang.

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Lingard, B., & Rawolle, S. (2011). New scalar politics: implications for education policy. Comparative Education, 47(4), 489-502. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2011.555941

Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the world system: The emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95-117. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523

Marcus, G. E. (1998). Ethnography through thick and thin. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Massey, D. (1991). A global sense of place. Marxism Today, 38, 24-29.

Massey, D. (1994). Space, place, and gender. Malden, MA: Polity Press.

Massey, D. (2005). For space. London: Sage.

Maxwell, J. (2013). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

McDermott, R., & Varenne, H. (1995). Culture as disability. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 26(3), 324-348. https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.1995.26.3.05x0936z

Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Middleton, S. (2014). Henri Lefebvre and education: Space, history, theory. New York: Routledge.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Nespor, J. (2004). Educational scale-making. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 12(3), 309-326. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681360400200205

Nespor, J. (1997). Tangled up in school. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.

Ortner, S. B. (Ed.). (1999). The fate of “culture”: Geertz and beyond. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Philips, D., & Schweisfurth, M. (2014). Comparative and International Education: An Introduction to Theory, Method, and Practice. New York: Bloomsbury.

Ragin, C. C. (1992). Introduction: Cases of “what is a case?” In C. Ragin & H. S. Becker (Eds.), What is a case? Exploring the foundations of social inquiry (pp. 1-17). New York Cambridge University Press.

Stake, R. E. (1994). Case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 236-247). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Stake, R. E. (2003). Case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Strategies of qualitative inquiry (2nd ed.) (pp. 134-164). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Stake, R. E. (2006). Multiple case study analysis. New York: The Guilford Press.

Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2010). The politics and economics of comparison. Comparative Education Review, 54(3), 323-342. https://doi.org/10.1086/653047

Taylor, C., Rees, G., & Davies, R. (2013). Devolution and geographies of education: The use of the Millennium Cohort Study for ‘home international’ comparisons across the UK. Comparative Education, 49(3), 290-316. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2013.802927

Tsing, A. L. (2005). Friction: An ethnography of global connections. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

van der Veer, P. (2016). The value of comparison. Durham: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822374220

Vavrus, F. (2016). Topographies of power: Critical historical geography in the study of education in Tanzania. Comparative Education, 52(2), 136-156. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822374220

Vavrus, F., & Bartlett, L. (2009). Critical approaches to comparative education: Vertical case studies from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101760

Vavrus, F., & Bartlett, L. (Eds.). (2013). Teaching in tension: International pedagogies, national policies, and teachers’ practices in Tanzania. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-224-2

Willis, P., & Trondman, M. (2000). Manifesto for ethnography. Ethnography, 1(1), 5-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/14661380022230679

Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Yin, R. K. (2011). Applications of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Downloads

Published

2017-07-11

How to Cite

Bartlett, L., & Vavrus, F. (2017). Comparative Case Studies: An Innovative Approach. Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education (NJCIE), 1(1). https://doi.org/10.7577/njcie.1929