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The social sciences have seen a substantial increase in comparative and multisited ethnographic projects over the last three decades, yet field research often remains associated with small-scale, in-depth, and singular case studies. The growth of comparative ethnography underscores the need to carefully consider the process, logics, and consequences of comparison. This need is intensified by the fact that ethnography has long encompassed a wide range of traditions with different approaches toward comparative social science. At present, researchers seeking to design comparative field projects have many studies to emulate but few scholarly works detailing the process of comparison in divergent ethnographic approaches. Beyond the Case addresses this by showing how practitioners in contemporary iterations of traditions such as phenomenology, the extended case method, grounded theory, positivism, and interpretivism approach this in their works. It connects the long history of comparative (and anti-comparative) ethnographic approaches to their contemporary uses. Each chapter allows influential scholars to 1) unpack the methodological logics that shape how they use comparison; 2) connect these precepts to the concrete techniques they employ; and 3) articulate the utility of their approach. By honing in on how ethnographers render sites or cases analytically commensurable and comparable, these contributions offer a new lens for examining the assumptions, payoffs, and potential drawbacks of different forms of comparative ethnography. Beyond the Case provides a resource that allows both new and experienced ethnographers to critically evaluate the intellectual merits of various approaches and to strengthen their own research in the process.

Design and Analysis of Time Series Experiments develops a comprehensive set of models and methods for drawing causal inferences from time series. Example analyses of social, behavioral, and biomedical time series illustrate a general strategy for building AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) impact models. The classic Box-Jenkins-Tiao model-building strategy is supplemented with recent auxiliary tests for transformation, differencing, and model selection. The validity of causal inferences is approached from two complementary directions. The four-validity system of Cook and Campbell relies on ruling out discrete threats to statistical conclusion, internal, construct, and external validity. The Rubin system causal model relies on the identification of counterfactual time series. The two approaches to causal validity are shown to be complementary and are illustrated with a construction of a synthetic control time series. Example analyses make optimal use of graphical illustrations. Mathematical methods used in the example analyses are explicated in technical appendices, including expectation algebra, sequences and series, maximum likelihood, Box-Cox transformation analyses and probability.

Evidence — its nature and interpretation — is the key to many topical debates and concerns such as global warming, evolution, the search for weapons of mass destruction, DNA profiling, and evidence-based medicine. In 2004, University College London launched a cross-disciplinary research programme ‘Evidence, Inference and Enquiry’ to explore the question: ‘Can there be an integrated multidisciplinary science of evidence?’ While this question was hotly contested and no clear final consensus emerged, much was learned on the journey. This book, based on the closing conference of the programme held at the British Academy in December 2007, illustrates the complexity of the subject, with seventeen chapters written from a diversity of perspectives including Archaeology, Computer Science, Economics, Education, Health, History, Law, Psychology, Philosophy, and Statistics. General issues covered include principles and systems for handling complex evidence, evidence for policy-making, and human evidence-processing, as well as the very possibility of systematising the study of evidence.

This book explores the nature of contemporary heritage research involving university and community partners. Putting forward a new view of heritage as a process of research and involvement with the past, undertaken with or by the communities for whom it is relevant, the book uses a diverse range of case studies, with many chapters co-written between academics and community partners. Through this extensive work, the book shows that the process of research itself can be an empowering force by which communities stake a claim in the places they live.

The central analytic focus of most policy-oriented social research today is the assessment of the relative importance of competing independent variables in multivariate analyses. A researcher might ask: “Which variable has the strongest impact on life chances: education, test scores, or family background?” In this book we offer an alternative to the conventional approach to the analysis of policy-relevant social data. Instead of asking, "What is the net effect of each independent variable on the outcome?" we ask, "What combinations of causally relevant conditions are consistently linked to the outcome?" Thus, in our approach causal conditions do not compete with each other; rather, they combine in different ways to produce the outcome. This alternate approach, which utilizes set-analytic techniques, allows for the possibility that there may be several paths to the same outcome, which in turn may differ by race and gender. We illustrate this new approach via a re-analysis of the Bell Curve data. We show that by viewing cases intersectionally and causes conjuncturally, researchers can address nuanced questions about the causal conditions linked to poverty. Our central findings demonstrate dramatic racial differences in the connections between advantages versus disadvantages and the experience versus the avoidance of poverty.

This book presents a collection of research projects carried out by experienced practitioners in the play sector in the UK and US who were also students, graduates and staff on the University of Gloucestershire’s postgraduate programme in children’s play. It offers a range of approaches to researching children’s play and adults’ roles in supporting it, including some that move beyond traditional qualitative approaches to explore what more might be said through post-qualitative methodologies. It also offers multi- and trans-disciplinary perspectives on children’s play and adults’ relationships with it, presenting students and practitioners alike with diverse perspectives to complement the dominant orthodoxy of developmental psychology. The book shares reflections on the research process; explores issues concerning researching children’s play and adults working to support it; showcases a diversity of contexts and sites of investigation into children’s play; and draws on diverse disciplinary perspectives on children’s play and adults’ relationships with it. Topics include adults’ memories of their own childhood play; adults’ role in the co-production of spaces where children can play, including adventure playgrounds, out of school clubs, children’s zoos, children’s museums and public space; perspectives on the nature and value of adventure playgrounds and playwork; therapeutic approaches to playwork; playwork and wellbeing; supporting the play of severely disabled children and young people; play and contemporary art practice; children’s use of technology in a playground; and children’s play in public spaces. Research methodologies include ethnography, auto-ethnography, oral histories, participatory action research, case study; performative, narrative and non-representational approaches.

Qualitative interviewing is one of the most widely used methods in social research, but it is arguably the least well understood. To address that gap, this book offers a theoretically rigorous, empirically rich, and user-friendly set of strategies for conceiving and conducting interview-based research. Much more than a how-to manual, the book shows why depth interviewing is an indispensable method for discovering and explaining the social world—shedding light on the hidden patterns and dynamics that take place within institutions, social contexts, relationships, and individual experiences. It offers a step-by-step guide through every stage in the research process, from initially formulating a question to developing arguments and presenting the results. To do this, the book shows how to develop a research question, decide on and find an appropriate sample, construct an interview guide, conduct probing and theoretically focused interviews, and systematically analyze the complex material that depth interviews provide—all in the service of finding and presenting important new empirical discoveries and theoretical insights. The book also lays out the ever-present but rarely discussed challenges that interviewers routinely encounter and then presents grounded, thoughtful ways to respond to them. By addressing the most heated debates about the scientific status of qualitative methods, the book demonstrates how depth interviewing makes unique and essential contributions to the research enterprise. With an emphasis on the integral relationship between carefully crafted research and theory building, the book offers a compelling vision for what the “interviewing imagination” can and should be.

This book is the story of twelve people, each living with long-term illness. Delving into the routines and rhythms of everyday life, the book reveals the significance of the things that we usually take for granted, from what we eat to when we sleep, how we move, and what we wear. Learning from the lives portrayed, it explores ideas of care, vulnerability and choice, questioning what it means to live a modern life with illness and illuminating the vitality of bodies along the way. Juxtaposing academic text with rich descriptions and vivid illustrations, including video stills, journal extracts, and drawings, the book highlights the sensory and emotional intimacies of visual sociology and demonstrates the use and value of sensuous scholarship.