Review by Choice Review
Contributors to this volume on the sociological case study have individually produced innovative and compelling work on homelessness (Snow and Anderson), cities and their developemnt (Sjoberg, Orum, and Feagin; Bahr and Caplow), gendered occupations (Williams), family structures (Handel), white-collar crime (Geis), and religion (Warner). Here, in a series of well-grounded and carefully written pieces, they reflect on the process of undertaking and carrying through holistic studies of the particular and the advantages that such investigations offer to social researchers. These analytic descriptions of descriptive analysis reveal the continuing allure of the case-study approach. The volume has one flaw (perhaps because it may have been designed for use in the typically short ^D["qualitative^D]" section of sociological methods courses)--its unreasonable and demonstrably false insistence that case studies are characterized by the use of nonquantitative methods rather than by thick descriptions of the particular. Yet the collection's true value lies in its contribution to the literature of scholarly self-reflection. All levels.
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
