Pedagogy AND Case Study

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

The increasing popularity of the case study method in education also mirrors the rise of qualitative sociology and social psychology. As philosophers and social theorists began to question both the classical traditions in pedagogical thought and the abstract empiricism of positivistic social science more generally, qualitative and necessarily case-based approaches to the study of social and educational phenomena began to gain ground. These methodological spaces opened up out of phenomenology and pragmatism as philosophical currents in Europe and the United States, respectively, and are still struggling for legitimacy and respectability with other forms of social research methodology founded on high-status research practices in the natural sciences. In the latter half of the 20th century in particular, the philosophical currents of phenomenology and pragmatism have been critiqued and enhanced by theoretical work coming out of diverse and varied positions that each argue for a return to microanalysis. These currents include, for example, structuralism, poststructuralism, feminism, postmodernism, critical race theory, critical geography, postcolonialism, indigenous knowledge, and ecopedagogy.

Application

With its emphasis on the structure of cognition the field of developmental psychology, pioneered by G. Stanley Hall in the United States and developed most notably by Jean Piaget in Europe, focused on close observation of children in learning situations. From the latter decades of the 19th century the broadly defined child study movement sought to learn about learning from learners themselves, replacing an exclusive emphasis on the kinds of pedagogical content that supported the formation of particular kinds of religious, civic, and social consciousness. It became clear from Hall's early work, for instance, that many assumptions about what children know and how they think were quite erroneous. What is significant from the point of view of the case study method is that structuralist theory allowed developmental psychologists such as Piaget to argue that the cognitive processes exhibited by children at different developmental stages were essentially universal; therefore, case studies of small numbers of children could provide insight into the structure of cognition.

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