Deadly Lessons Understanding Lethal School Violence (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A: Case Study Methodology and the Study of Rare Events of Extreme Youth Violence: A Multilevel Framework for Discovery
Appendix A: Case Study Methodology and the Study of Rare Events of Extreme Youth Violence: A Multilevel Framework for Discovery
Pages 351-363
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From page 351... ...
The nature of the phenomena to be studied necessitated a comparative case study approach by virtue of both the extreme rarity of the phenomena, in terms of numbers of occurrences, as well as the extreme severity of the behavior involved, whether that behavior is seen on any of a number of possible continua, including general violence, youth violence, or school violence. The small number of cases precluded gathering a large sample, while the severity of the violence seemed to demand indepth scrutiny of such extraordinary events.
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From page 352... ...
Viewing human behavior as occurring in a set of hierarchically nested systems is of great heuristic value in this situation, certainly as a way of casting a wide net and potentially as a way of actually catching something in an uncharted sea. APPROPRIATE USES OF CASE STUDY METHODS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Case studies have a variety of practical uses, including widespread application as teaching texts in such fields as law and business.
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From page 353... ...
? With so few cases and the frighteningly suggestive but statistically unverifiable appearance of a recent upward trend, we cannot rule out any of these possibilities at the beginning of an inquiry.
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From page 354... ...
1 eJ tJ 1 eJ 1 CASE STUDY, NATURALISTIC INQUIRY, AND SYSTEMATIC DISCOVERY Case studies are inherently naturalistic, conducted by means of gathering data from within the naturally existing social fields in which the phenomena of interest are located (Lincoln and Gruba, 1985~. This naturalistic perspective is well suited to the systematic discovery of both important factors, "variables" in other terminology, as well as the processes that connect these factors, or varying conditions, in the unfolding of social action (Abbott, 1992~.
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From page 355... ...
This process unfolds in practice through an iterative process of conceptualization and data-gathering in which research questions and operations are continually refined as initial data analyses suggest subsequent data-gathering, ideally until the data themselves appear to reach a point of saturation, at which point subsequent data add very little to the overall picture (Strauss and Corbin, 1998~. The naturalistic approach allows researchers to test any theoretical notions they have brought to the field against the perceptions of social actors in that field as well as to invite the social actors to nominate other potentially important factors.
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From page 356... ...
HIERARCHICALLY NESTED SYSTEMS AND THE STUDY OF VIOLENCE Previous syntheses of the research literature on violence have consistently suggested a hierarchically nested explanatory framework. For example, a comprehensive review of the literature commissioned by the National Research Council a few years ago was organized around the nested levels of community, situation, and individual (National Research Council, 1993~.
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From page 357... ...
, the other from developmental psychology (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1992~. The two theories share some common assumptions about how human behavior unfolds within a set of hierarchically nested ecological levels.
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From page 358... ...
His theory is therefore fully grounded in empirical science and in no way a misty invocation of alternative medical systems based on anything other than empirical scientific premises. He therefore stresses the need to consider all potential factors at various levels of hierarchical embeddedness (within the practical limits of time and available information)
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From page 359... ...
The research design that emerged was one that approached the problem as one involving multiple levels of context requiring field inquiry that could investigate different levels of context and their interrelationships in the emergence of these events of extraordinary violence. The fact that these are case studies on highly unusual phenomena makes this kind of multilevel, comparative case study approach particularly appropriate.
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From page 360... ...
Beyond that, the small universe of these extremely serious incidents presents the possibility that finding one or more negative cases might cast serious doubt on a number of potential generalizations of interest. Negative explanatory findings can be highly useful in times of sudden and emotionally charged attention to a problem, during which many explanations are likely to be and should be tried out.
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From page 361... ...
If one presses hard on the conditions needed to establish causality, the number of truly successful causal demonstrations in social science diminishes very rapidly. Becker has contrasted the search for understanding "the real complexity of historical cases" with the effort to find "relationships between variables in a universe of hypothetical cases." He calls the relationships established in this kind of enterprise "conjunctures" rather than "causes" and advocates the search for such conjunctures as an eminently worthwhile scientific goal (Becker, 1992:208~.
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From page 362... ...
1993 Case Study Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
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From page 363... ...
Newbury Park: Sage Publications.
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