Tag Archives: case study

Studying the history of an entire country is hard, studying the history of one community is…also hard?

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I was recently reading two books that addressed historical changes in two groups of very different sizes: the entire United States versus a medium sized suburb. Is one easier to examine or understand compared to the other?

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The one looking at hundreds of years of history in what became the United States cannot go into as much depth. The scholar who wrote the history makes clear statements regarding how they interpret broad patterns. They highlight key moments, people and groups, and places.

Does this mean it is easier to study one community? The scholarly work about the history of one suburb – with a primary on just a few decades – has more details. But the author states that they cannot fully represent the history of the community given all the different perspectives and experiences there. And they also clearly make their own argument about how to interpret this history.

It is hard to compare two different works with such different goals: cover 500+ plus years of history on one topic in one large country and another primarily approaching several decades in the second half of the twentieth century in a medium sized suburb. Yet, they both are making claims. They argue they found things worth paying attention to. They say these findings can help us understand broader patterns.

Even as there are people who study both kinds of cases, my sense is that studies in recent years have more more to the smaller scale. Making big claims about broad sweeps of history requires a lot of work. If there are many stories on the local level, how many more are there with bigger cases.

In doing a little of each kind of work, I find they present their own difficulties. They have satisfying aspects; the details of a smaller case are interesting to understand while trying to uncover the patterns across a lot going on with a larger case is also interesting. They are different sorts of puzzles that can better help us understand what has happened and where we are now.

Why studying multiple suburbs is helpful compared to studying suburbia or a single suburb

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As I prepare to present research tonight on suburbs and race, specifically in Wheaton, Illinois, I reflected on my methodological approach. In sociology and the social sciences, we often seek data that is both generalizable and detailed. In my research, I have largely worked to study suburbs through comparisons with other suburbs. I believe this has some distinct advantages, even as it also presents limitations.

One approach to studying suburbs would consider them as a whole: suburbia. Even though there are thousands of suburbs, they share common characteristics. Suburbs are distinct from other settings and their geography, density, physical arrangements, and social and cultural life separate them from big cities and rural areas.

Instead of focusing on the whole, a study could go another direction: focus on one specific suburban community. Perhaps it is a suburb that exemplifies suburbs as a whole, perhaps it is a more unusual suburb. Studying the history and particulars in depth could provide rich details about suburban communities and life.

My research thus far has tried to take a middle approach. This involves finding a small set of suburban cases to compare and contrast. I studied each of these cases in a good amount of detail. The comparison between cases helps me assess whether patterns in one community are unusual or not. The detail I have about each community helps me know whether these suburbs fit broader patterns.

Urban Affairs Review article

Selecting the right suburban cases can be difficult. Among all the suburbs, it is better to choose ones that share certain traits or better to find more different ones? All the detail about specific places may not be that useful if the cases cannot relate to suburbs.

Another downside of the historical/comparative method is the amount of time it requires. Gathering details on specific suburbs can take time. Going through the data and finding patterns can take time.

And, the study of American suburbs benefits from all of the approaches I mentioned above: broad patterns in all suburbs, case studies of particular communities, and historical/comparative work among sets of suburbs. Even as my initial study of suburbs took this middle approach, I have also written in the other veins considering suburbs as a whole and focusing in more on a specific community. With complex suburbia and many suburbs to consider, there is plenty to study from multiple angles.

Autism case #1

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Autism is a growing diagnosis in the United States. The Atlantic profiles the man, Donald Triplett, who was the first autism case in the United States diagnosed in the early 1940s.

The main question raised by this article, and one that is important to consider in the coming decades, is what will happen to autistic adults? There are a number of programs today for autistic children and teenagers but care is much more spotty for adults. Additionally, what happens when the parents of autistic children die? Donald has made a life for himself that includes plenty of golf and world travel but he lives in a close-knit Southern community that protects him from outsiders.

I used this article recently in class to illustrate how two journalists used a purposive sample to make their argument. Rather than try to look at autistic adults as a whole, they selected a prominent case to raise questions about autistic adults. While Donald may not be truly representative of this group, his life illustrates how an autistic adult can have a good life.