Understanding the Complexity of Gay Skinhead Identity Through Case Studies

Abstract

The present case examines why the qualitative research method technique of a case study was used to understanding how six men negotiated between their seemingly incompatible identities of being gay men and of being skinheads. To do this, we provide an overview of descriptive methods followed by a more focused discussion of case studies. Next, we discuss the technique of snowball sampling, highlighting how and why we used it to recruit participants for our study. Then the potential difficulties of obtaining informed consent from members of a subculture are presented and the reasons why we used oral versus written consent are explained. Finally, three different interview techniques—unstructured, semi-structured, and structured interviews—are briefly described with a focus on the advantages of conducting semi-structured interviews in case studies such as ours.

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