CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH

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© Lee Harvey 1990, 2011, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024

Page updated 8 January, 2024

Citation reference: Harvey, L., [1990] 2011, Critical Social Research, available at qualityresearchinternational.com/csr, last updated 8 January, 2024, originally published in London by Unwin Hyman, all rights revert to author.

A novel of twists and surpises

5.6 Critical case study
In critical (or theoretical) case study the researcher deliberately selects, for detailed empirical analysis, a case that provides a specific focus for analysis of myth or contradiction. Goldthorpe and Lockwood selected a case study that as far as possible provided the conditions to endorse the myth of embourgoisement. They undertook a detailed analysis of the workers in Luton with a view to exploding the myth. Grimshaw and Jefferson selected their theoretical case study in such a way that it provided the setting in which the contradictions of policing were most clearly exposed. The selection of a large metropolitan county force with a centralizes command structure and a range of specialist departments, located in a multiracial area of economic decline, brought into stark relief the way the legal, democratic and work structures are mediated in practice.

Although not necessarily referring to their work as critical case study, this approach is effectively adopted by other critical researchers. For example, Cockburn's selection of a male white craft union in her analysis of the impact of, and resistance to, the introduction of new computerised technology constituted a critical case study as did Liddle & Joshi's selection of professional women in India. Neither group was seen as in any way representative of a wider social group. On the contrary, they were selected as paradigm cases.

A variety of different data collection techniques can be adopted within a critical case study approach. Goldthorpe and Lockwood relied principally on structured interviews augmented by observation in ascertaining the interests, attitudes, social networks and lifestyle of their case-study group. Grimshaw and Jefferson used non-participant observation and document analysis. Cockburn preferred depth-interviewing and Liddle & Joshi used variety of questioning techniques in their repeated contacts with the case-study group. There is nothing inherently advantageous in any particular data collection method for critical case study. The case study is not the end in itself, rather it is an empirical resource for the exploration of wider questions about the nature of oppressive social structures. What is important is that the study is designed to critically address myths or contradictions at the level of actual practices that relate to broader questions about the operation of oppression.

So, critical case study takes abstract theoretical notions and deconstructs them as social practices and explores how these operate in relation to the social totality. Goldthorpe and Lockwood broke down the embourgeoisement thesis into three dimensions and examined each by reference to the actual aspirations, attitudes and work and leisure activities of the supposedly embourgeoised workers, which they compared to middle-class/white-collar workers. Grimshaw and Jefferson similarly broke down each of the abstract notions of 'work', 'law' and 'democracy' into its components and addressed each in the context of policing practices.

Crucially, the critical social researcher's use of critical case study is directed at exploring wider social structural and historical issues. Goldthorpe and Lockwood, for example, were not simply concerned with the attitudes of workers in Luton, nor were they even concerned with simply endorsing or rejecting the embourgeoisement thesis. They were interested in the thesis in so far as it related to the question of the revolutionary potential of the working class in advanced industrial society and the implications of this for labour politics. Cockburn was as much interested in showing that gender was as crucial as class in the analysis of the labouring process as she was in exploring the issue of the introduction of new technology into the workplace.

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