Table of Contents

PART ONE: GETTING YOUR BEARINGS
What Is a Case Study?
Case Study and Research Design
Models of the Whole
Ensuring Quality in Your Case Study: What′s Important?
PART TWO: GETTING DOWN TO DOING IT
Kinds of Case Studies: Finding Your Case
Your Purpose
Your Approach
Your Process
PART THREE: GETTING ON WITH IT AND FINISHING
Out in the Field: Some Ways to Collect Data and Evidence
A Toolkit for Analyzing and Thinking
Writing Your Study
The Fancy Stuff: Generalization, Induction, Abduction, Phronesis and Theory

About the Author

Gary Thomas is an emeritus professor of education at the University of Birmingham. His teaching and research have focused on inclusion, special education, and research methodology in education, with a particular focus on case study. He has conducted research funded by the AHRC, the ESRC, the Nuffield Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, the Department for Education, Barnardos, local authorities, and a range of other organisations. He has coedited the British Educational Research Journal and is currently an executive editor of Educational Review. He is author of many books, most recently Education: A Very Short Introduction published by Oxford University Press.

Reviews

This very readable and well crafted book should significantly advance thinking about the conduct of case study research. It impressively demonstrates, through well-selected examples, the uses of case studies within a wide range of disciplines and practical fields of study and dispels some popular misconceptions of this research genre in the process.
John Elliot
Emeritus Professor of Education, University of East Anglia All chapters are clearly structured but with an eye for presenting variations of research designs, purposes, approaches, data collections and tools for analysis across applied social sciences and humanities. The chapters are written in a lively, engaged and personal manner - though highly academic and structured in their argumentation at the same time - and as a nice student-friendly communicative feature, each chapter finishes with a short section called "If you only take one thing from this chapter, take this..."... I can recommend Thomas′ book as an inspiring and systematic companion to think and discuss with, where there is tolerance towards the wonderful variability of doing qualitative research.
Bente Halkier
Roskilde University

This particular text will replace a few "classics" on my shelf, and I plan to use the book when teaching my methodology courses.
*Educational Review*