case study about social issues

165 Case Studies: Real Stories Of People Overcoming Struggles of Mental Health

At Tracking Happiness, we’re dedicated to helping others around the world overcome struggles of mental health.

In 2022, we published a survey of 5,521 respondents and found:

• 88% of our respondents experienced mental health issues in the past year.
• 25% of people don’t feel comfortable sharing their struggles with anyone, not even their closest friends.

In order to break the stigma that surrounds mental health struggles, we’re looking to share your stories.

Overcoming struggles

They say that everyone you meet is engaged in a great struggle. No matter how well someone manages to hide it, there’s always something to overcome, a struggle to deal with, an obstacle to climb.

And when someone is engaged in a struggle, that person is looking for others to join him. Because we, as human beings, don’t thrive when we feel alone in facing a struggle.

Let’s throw rocks together

Overcoming your struggles is like defeating an angry giant. You try to throw rocks at it, but how much damage is one little rock gonna do?

Tracking Happiness can become your partner in facing this giant. We are on a mission to share all your stories of overcoming mental health struggles. By doing so, we want to help inspire you to overcome the things that you’re struggling with, while also breaking the stigma of mental health.

Which explains the phrase: “Let’s throw rocks together”.

Let’s throw rocks together, and become better at overcoming our struggles collectively. If you’re interested in becoming a part of this and sharing your story, click this link!

Case studies

August 20, 2024

Overcoming Reactive Attachment Disorder and Depression with Self-Care and Therapy

“Despite experiencing severe depressive symptoms, including suicidal ideation, I made a concerted effort to appear upbeat and engaged in social settings. This involved forcing myself to smile, laugh, and participate in conversations as if everything was fine, even when I was internally battling intense emotional pain that I felt I was not safe to reveal.”

Struggled with: Childhood Depression People-pleasing Reactive Attachment Disorder

Helped by: Self-Care Therapy

August 13, 2024

Finding Happiness At Sea As A Yacht Captain After Overcoming Depression and Anxiety

“If a situation is making you unhappy – a marriage, a job, a family member – anything – change the situation. You can leave, you can stop speaking to someone (yes, even a parent or another family member), and you can do so free of guilt because you are in charge of your own happiness, and life is too short to choose anything different for yourself.”

Struggled with: Anxiety Depression Suicidal

Helped by: Medication Therapy

August 6, 2024

Overcoming Neglect, Childhood Trauma and Abuse Through Careful Self-Improvement

“When I was 12 years old, my parents moved into their own place, along with my brother and sister. They left me with my grandparents. I could only see my family on weekends, and on Sunday evenings I would go back home. I was not able to build a normal relationship with my brother and sister. I even thought at one point that I was adopted, which was against all logic.”

Struggled with: Abuse Childhood

Helped by: Journaling Self-improvement

July 30, 2024

Overcoming a Rare Autoimmune Disease With a Careful Diet and Self-Improvement

“There were weeks when I wouldn’t leave my house, feeling too overwhelmed and exhausted to face the world. I tend to isolate myself rather than reaching out to others, which only compounded my feelings of loneliness and despair. I had to repattern my behavior and learn to ask for help or talk about my feelings, but it wasn’t easy. I internalized a lot of my pain and frustration, which made me feel even more isolated.”

Struggled with: Anxiety Autoimmune disease

Helped by: Self-improvement

July 23, 2024

Surviving The Boston Marathon Bombings While Facing TBI and Medical Gaslighting

“As I literally lived on his couch, with my port-a-potty in his living room, my partner eventually applied for permanent disability status for me. But, even the doctor gaslighted me, told me I was physically able to work, and reported the same to the government. In reality, I was so dizzy with vertigo, this same doctor refused to let me walk to and from our car, by myself, fearing I’d fall and sue!”

Struggled with: CPTSD Traumatic Brain Injury

Helped by: Treatment

July 16, 2024

Somatic Therapy Helped Me Heal From CPTSD After Years of Childhood Abuse

“At 22 years old, I knew that I was dying of alcoholism. I accepted that. The trauma symptoms I experienced were too overwhelming to stop drinking. When I was sober, I would sometimes experience 30 to 40 body memories of being sexually assaulted–again and again in succession. I drank to feel numb.”

Struggled with: Abuse Addiction CPTSD Suicidal

Helped by: Social support Therapy

July 9, 2024

Learning To Live With Irritable Bowel Syndrome With Therapy And A Positive Mindset

“Raising four young children and battling a chronic illness with no cure was challenging for me. On the outside, I looked OK. But I wasn’t and in some ways today still have flare-ups and struggles, the difference is, I now know how to maintain it, especially knowing this will be the rest of my life regardless!”

Struggled with: Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Helped by: Therapy Treatment

July 4, 2024

How A Rescue Dog Helped Me Overcome TBI, Depression and Suicidal Ideation

“I sat on the summer-hot pavement, and no one stopped or asked me if I was okay. No one called the police. People walked around me as quickly as possible. When I was all cried out, I walked home to my empty house. I bought a set of knives, ostensibly for cooking, but that was not the reason. I had thought about pills, and every day I researched how many of each prescription drug I was on would I need to take to die. Using a sharp knife seemed so much easier.”

Struggled with: Depression Suicidal Traumatic Brain Injury

Helped by: Medication Pets Volunteering

July 2, 2024

Walking El Camino de Santiago Helped Me Reconnect With My Authentic Self

“Beneath the outward bravado, I battled with self-doubt and kept wondering why genuine connections seemed beyond my ability. Even though I put out valiant efforts to conceal it, my inner turmoil seeped out, leaving me feeling exposed and vulnerable. And, I knew they could tell.”

Struggled with: Feeling lost People-pleasing Self-doubt

Helped by: Self-acceptance Self-awareness

June 27, 2024

My Journey of Overcoming Heartbreak Thanks to Self-Care and The Support Of Friends

“I’ve learned that finding the right people to confide in, those who offer genuine support and empathy, can make a significant difference in navigating these challenges. It takes time and trust to build those connections, but they are invaluable.”

Struggled with: Breakup

Helped by: Self-Care Social support

The Biggest 15 Social Issues We Are Facing Today

No matter where we live, what communities we belong to or what we care about, we are affected by social issues. It’s the price of living in a society, and while challenges like poverty, climate change and discrimination can feel overwhelming, we have the power to take action. The first step is understanding what issues we’re up against. In this article, we’ll explore 15 of the biggest social issues facing the world today.

#1. The global housing crisis

Shelter is a human right, but hundreds of millions of people lack adequate, affordable housing. According to the World Bank, the housing crisis is global, and it could impact as many as 1.6 billion people by 2025. That number will only grow with time. By 2030, the world needs to build 96,000 new affordable homes per day to meet the needs of 3 billion people. What’s driving the global housing crisis? According to Albert Saiz in a paper for the MIT Center for Real Estate, economic factors like rising costs and income inequality are prevalent. Addressing these issues now is critical to protecting people in the future.

#2. Gender inequality

Societies have been working to improve gender inequality for centuries, but we still have a long way to go. Globally, women still make less money than men, have poorer health outcomes, have fewer opportunities and endure more gender–based violence. According to 2023 data, the global gender gap won’t close until 2154 . Even the most gender-equal country, which is Iceland , still has social issues to address. Some of the issues are recognized – women are still being subjected to physical and sexual violence – while there are gaps in data related to things like unpaid care, domestic work, gender and the environment, and so on.

#3. Climate crisis

The climate crisis is one of today’s most urgent social issues. Earth.org outlines a list of major climate events in 2023 , including severe droughts, wildfires, higher ocean surface temperatures and storms. That same year, the IPCC released a summary of its previous five reports, showing how human activity is causing severe damage to the planet, and, if trends continue, parts of the earth will become unlivable in just a few decades. The world can fight the climate crisis, but we have to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and turn to renewable energy sources.

#4. Overconsumption

Greenhouse gas emissions are a primary driver of climate change, but overconsumption is hurting the planet, too. Unfathomable amounts of food, clothing, plastic and other things are thrown into landfills and the ocean every day. However, it’s not a problem for everyone. According to research, just 20% of the world’s population is responsible for consuming 80% of the globe’s natural resources. The richest 500 million people release half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. To break it down even further, if every person in the world consumed resources at the rate as people in Canada and the United States did, we would need at least five earths .

#5. Global hunger

Global food insecurity is a serious problem. According to data, about 735 million people endured chronic hunger in 2022, and with issues like climate change, the lingering effects of the pandemic and conflict, it will be very challenging to end hunger by 2030. Children typically suffer the most. When kids don’t get enough to eat, they become more vulnerable to diseases like measles, malaria and diarrhea. According to the World Food Programme, “hotspots” for hunger include Burkina Faso, Mali, South Sudan and Palestine.

#6. Threats to LGBTQ+ rights

At the same time as LGBTQ+ rights have expanded, certain countries have pushed back. In the summer of 2023, the first Ugandan was charged with “aggravated homosexuality,” a crime punishable by death. In its 2023 review, the Electronic Frontier Foundation also found an increase in anti-LGBTQ sentiment , including more laws that restrict privacy and freedom of expression, and censorship of LGBTQ+ websites. Even in places like the United States, which is seen by many as a haven for the LGBTQ+ community, legislative threats are on the rise .

#7. Reproductive justice

Reproductive justice, which includes things like abortion access and maternal health, is a social issue affecting every corner of the world. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, most countries are expanding abortion rights, while just four – the United States, Poland, Nicaragua, and El Salvador – rolled back abortion rights . Globally, about 40% of women live in places with “restrictive” abortion laws. Related social issues include menstrual health, prenatal and maternal health, access to contraception and so on.

#8. Educational disparities

When people get a good education, they’re more likely to have higher incomes, better health, healthier children and other benefits. On a larger scale, education also helps countries achieve overall wealth and health. There’s been significant progress on closing the gender gap in education. According to a blog on the World Bank, boys and girls complete primary school at almost an equal rate . However, around 130 million girls are still being denied an education. Wealth also plays a role in educational disparities. In the United States, one study found that wealth affects a student’s chances of finishing college. On a global scale, wealth also impacts where a family lives and what school options are available, as well as tutoring opportunities, whether a student needs a job and much more.

#9. Health and healthcare

Health and the ability (or inability) to access good healthcare are major social issues. Unfortunately, healthcare systems around the world are struggling. COVID-19 continues to be a problem, but hospitals are also facing staff shortages and competition . Not everyone is affected equally. According to the World Health Organization, refugees and migrants experience worse health outcomes due to language barriers, cultural differences, discrimination and legal restrictions on what services they can access.

#10. Income inequality

Global income inequality fluctuates, but according to a 2023 Oxfam study , the world’s richest 1% took almost ⅔ of all the new wealth created since 2020. That gave them almost twice the amount of money held by the bottom 99%. Income inequality can cause serious problems , such as lower economic growth, worse social cohesion and political polarization. There are also ethical consequences to income inequality, which human rights and social justice advocates often discuss. Can society ever be truly good or free when only a handful of people hold all the wealth?

#11. Global unemployment (and underemployment)

High unemployment rates – and low-paying jobs – drive income inequality and poverty. In a 2023 report, the International Labour Organization found that the world is still experiencing slow employment growth . There was a slight recovery in 2021, but as the economy slows again, people are forced to take jobs that pay less, provide fewer hours and/or offer poor working conditions. South Africa, which is the most industrialized economy in Africa, also has one of the highest unemployment rates. According to Reuters, reasons include structural issues related to the shadows of colonialism and apartheid. To fight issues like poverty and gender inequality, countries need to address unemployment and low-paying jobs.

#12. Increased migration

People move all the time, but issues like war and climate change force people to leave their homes. Sometimes, they move within the borders of one country, but other times, they’re forced to take long, dangerous journeys to countries they’ve never visited. According to the Migration Policy Institute, “humanitarian migration” increased in 2023, while policies could impact elections in 2024. The social issues related to migration, such as the rights of migrants, affordable housing, health services and more, will all be relevant for the foreseeable future.

#13. Artificial intelligence

The presence of artificial intelligence has exploded in recent years, but the technology has several issues. Ethics is just one of them. According to a guide on UMA Libraries, AI has problems with gender and racial bias, plagiarism, generating fake news and supporting scams. It also takes a lot of energy to train and run AI programs, so as the use of AI increases, so will its carbon footprint . As the technology continues to develop, new regulations, legislation and guidelines will need to be created, as well.

#14. Debt bondage

Rates of labor trafficking have been increasing over the years. According to research, about ⅕ of those in forced labor trafficking are in debt bondage . Debt bondage is a very common type of trafficking where a person is forced to work off a loan. However, because the debt is often so high and they are paid so little, it’s impossible to escape the situation. Perpetrators also often have no intention of freeing the people they’re exploiting; debt bondage can even pass on to children. While bonded labor is technically illegal in some places, like India, it persists , especially in rural areas. Because trafficking is an illicit practice, it’s very difficult to get accurate numbers, but it’s most likely worse than what’s reported.

#15. Threats to journalism

By providing vital information to the public, journalists are essential to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, democracy and the protection of other human rights. In recent years, journalism has been under threat. According to the 2023 World Press Freedom Index , the environment for journalism was “bad” in seven out of 10 countries, while it was “satisfactory” in just three out of 10 countries. The reasons include a surge in fake news and propaganda. Journalists also face threats to their lives. UNESCO found that in 2023, there was a near doubling of deaths of journalists working in conflict zones. As conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine and other countries continue, the safety of journalism will remain a social issue.

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

A case study research paper examines a person, place, event, condition, phenomenon, or other type of subject of analysis in order to extrapolate  key themes and results that help predict future trends, illuminate previously hidden issues that can be applied to practice, and/or provide a means for understanding an important research problem with greater clarity. A case study research paper usually examines a single subject of analysis, but case study papers can also be designed as a comparative investigation that shows relationships between two or more subjects. The methods used to study a case can rest within a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method investigative paradigm.

Case Studies. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010 ; “What is a Case Study?” In Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London: SAGE, 2010.

How to Approach Writing a Case Study Research Paper

General information about how to choose a topic to investigate can be found under the " Choosing a Research Problem " tab in the Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper writing guide. Review this page because it may help you identify a subject of analysis that can be investigated using a case study design.

However, identifying a case to investigate involves more than choosing the research problem . A case study encompasses a problem contextualized around the application of in-depth analysis, interpretation, and discussion, often resulting in specific recommendations for action or for improving existing conditions. As Seawright and Gerring note, practical considerations such as time and access to information can influence case selection, but these issues should not be the sole factors used in describing the methodological justification for identifying a particular case to study. Given this, selecting a case includes considering the following:

• The case represents an unusual or atypical example of a research problem that requires more in-depth analysis? Cases often represent a topic that rests on the fringes of prior investigations because the case may provide new ways of understanding the research problem. For example, if the research problem is to identify strategies to improve policies that support girl's access to secondary education in predominantly Muslim nations, you could consider using Azerbaijan as a case study rather than selecting a more obvious nation in the Middle East. Doing so may reveal important new insights into recommending how governments in other predominantly Muslim nations can formulate policies that support improved access to education for girls.
• The case provides important insight or illuminate a previously hidden problem? In-depth analysis of a case can be based on the hypothesis that the case study will reveal trends or issues that have not been exposed in prior research or will reveal new and important implications for practice. For example, anecdotal evidence may suggest drug use among homeless veterans is related to their patterns of travel throughout the day. Assuming prior studies have not looked at individual travel choices as a way to study access to illicit drug use, a case study that observes a homeless veteran could reveal how issues of personal mobility choices facilitate regular access to illicit drugs. Note that it is important to conduct a thorough literature review to ensure that your assumption about the need to reveal new insights or previously hidden problems is valid and evidence-based.
• The case challenges and offers a counter-point to prevailing assumptions? Over time, research on any given topic can fall into a trap of developing assumptions based on outdated studies that are still applied to new or changing conditions or the idea that something should simply be accepted as "common sense," even though the issue has not been thoroughly tested in current practice. A case study analysis may offer an opportunity to gather evidence that challenges prevailing assumptions about a research problem and provide a new set of recommendations applied to practice that have not been tested previously. For example, perhaps there has been a long practice among scholars to apply a particular theory in explaining the relationship between two subjects of analysis. Your case could challenge this assumption by applying an innovative theoretical framework [perhaps borrowed from another discipline] to explore whether this approach offers new ways of understanding the research problem. Taking a contrarian stance is one of the most important ways that new knowledge and understanding develops from existing literature.
• The case provides an opportunity to pursue action leading to the resolution of a problem? Another way to think about choosing a case to study is to consider how the results from investigating a particular case may result in findings that reveal ways in which to resolve an existing or emerging problem. For example, studying the case of an unforeseen incident, such as a fatal accident at a railroad crossing, can reveal hidden issues that could be applied to preventative measures that contribute to reducing the chance of accidents in the future. In this example, a case study investigating the accident could lead to a better understanding of where to strategically locate additional signals at other railroad crossings so as to better warn drivers of an approaching train, particularly when visibility is hindered by heavy rain, fog, or at night.
• The case offers a new direction in future research? A case study can be used as a tool for an exploratory investigation that highlights the need for further research about the problem. A case can be used when there are few studies that help predict an outcome or that establish a clear understanding about how best to proceed in addressing a problem. For example, after conducting a thorough literature review [very important!], you discover that little research exists showing the ways in which women contribute to promoting water conservation in rural communities of east central Africa. A case study of how women contribute to saving water in a rural village of Uganda can lay the foundation for understanding the need for more thorough research that documents how women in their roles as cooks and family caregivers think about water as a valuable resource within their community. This example of a case study could also point to the need for scholars to build new theoretical frameworks around the topic [e.g., applying feminist theories of work and family to the issue of water conservation].

Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. “Building Theories from Case Study Research.” Academy of Management Review 14 (October 1989): 532-550; Emmel, Nick. Sampling and Choosing Cases in Qualitative Research: A Realist Approach . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2013; Gerring, John. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?” American Political Science Review 98 (May 2004): 341-354; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Seawright, Jason and John Gerring. "Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research." Political Research Quarterly 61 (June 2008): 294-308.

Structure and Writing Style

The purpose of a paper in the social sciences designed around a case study is to thoroughly investigate a subject of analysis in order to reveal a new understanding about the research problem and, in so doing, contributing new knowledge to what is already known from previous studies. In applied social sciences disciplines [e.g., education, social work, public administration, etc.], case studies may also be used to reveal best practices, highlight key programs, or investigate interesting aspects of professional work.

In general, the structure of a case study research paper is not all that different from a standard college-level research paper. However, there are subtle differences you should be aware of. Here are the key elements to organizing and writing a case study research paper.

I.  Introduction

As with any research paper, your introduction should serve as a roadmap for your readers to ascertain the scope and purpose of your study . The introduction to a case study research paper, however, should not only describe the research problem and its significance, but you should also succinctly describe why the case is being used and how it relates to addressing the problem. The two elements should be linked. With this in mind, a good introduction answers these four questions:

• What is being studied? Describe the research problem and describe the subject of analysis [the case] you have chosen to address the problem. Explain how they are linked and what elements of the case will help to expand knowledge and understanding about the problem.
• Why is this topic important to investigate? Describe the significance of the research problem and state why a case study design and the subject of analysis that the paper is designed around is appropriate in addressing the problem.
• What did we know about this topic before I did this study? Provide background that helps lead the reader into the more in-depth literature review to follow. If applicable, summarize prior case study research applied to the research problem and why it fails to adequately address the problem. Describe why your case will be useful. If no prior case studies have been used to address the research problem, explain why you have selected this subject of analysis.
• How will this study advance new knowledge or new ways of understanding? Explain why your case study will be suitable in helping to expand knowledge and understanding about the research problem.

Each of these questions should be addressed in no more than a few paragraphs. Exceptions to this can be when you are addressing a complex research problem or subject of analysis that requires more in-depth background information.

II.  Literature Review

The literature review for a case study research paper is generally structured the same as it is for any college-level research paper. The difference, however, is that the literature review is focused on providing background information and  enabling historical interpretation of the subject of analysis in relation to the research problem the case is intended to address . This includes synthesizing studies that help to:

• Place relevant works in the context of their contribution to understanding the case study being investigated . This would involve summarizing studies that have used a similar subject of analysis to investigate the research problem. If there is literature using the same or a very similar case to study, you need to explain why duplicating past research is important [e.g., conditions have changed; prior studies were conducted long ago, etc.].
• Describe the relationship each work has to the others under consideration that informs the reader why this case is applicable . Your literature review should include a description of any works that support using the case to investigate the research problem and the underlying research questions.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research using the case study . If applicable, review any research that has examined the research problem using a different research design. Explain how your use of a case study design may reveal new knowledge or a new perspective or that can redirect research in an important new direction.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies . This refers to synthesizing any literature that points to unresolved issues of concern about the research problem and describing how the subject of analysis that forms the case study can help resolve these existing contradictions.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research . Your review should examine any literature that lays a foundation for understanding why your case study design and the subject of analysis around which you have designed your study may reveal a new way of approaching the research problem or offer a perspective that points to the need for additional research.
• Expose any gaps that exist in the literature that the case study could help to fill . Summarize any literature that not only shows how your subject of analysis contributes to understanding the research problem, but how your case contributes to a new way of understanding the problem that prior research has failed to do.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important!] . Collectively, your literature review should always place your case study within the larger domain of prior research about the problem. The overarching purpose of reviewing pertinent literature in a case study paper is to demonstrate that you have thoroughly identified and synthesized prior studies in relation to explaining the relevance of the case in addressing the research problem.

III.  Method

In this section, you explain why you selected a particular case [i.e., subject of analysis] and the strategy you used to identify and ultimately decide that your case was appropriate in addressing the research problem. The way you describe the methods used varies depending on the type of subject of analysis that constitutes your case study.

If your subject of analysis is an incident or event . In the social and behavioral sciences, the event or incident that represents the case to be studied is usually bounded by time and place, with a clear beginning and end and with an identifiable location or position relative to its surroundings. The subject of analysis can be a rare or critical event or it can focus on a typical or regular event. The purpose of studying a rare event is to illuminate new ways of thinking about the broader research problem or to test a hypothesis. Critical incident case studies must describe the method by which you identified the event and explain the process by which you determined the validity of this case to inform broader perspectives about the research problem or to reveal new findings. However, the event does not have to be a rare or uniquely significant to support new thinking about the research problem or to challenge an existing hypothesis. For example, Walo, Bull, and Breen conducted a case study to identify and evaluate the direct and indirect economic benefits and costs of a local sports event in the City of Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of their study was to provide new insights from measuring the impact of a typical local sports event that prior studies could not measure well because they focused on large "mega-events." Whether the event is rare or not, the methods section should include an explanation of the following characteristics of the event: a) when did it take place; b) what were the underlying circumstances leading to the event; and, c) what were the consequences of the event in relation to the research problem.

If your subject of analysis is a person. Explain why you selected this particular individual to be studied and describe what experiences they have had that provide an opportunity to advance new understandings about the research problem. Mention any background about this person which might help the reader understand the significance of their experiences that make them worthy of study. This includes describing the relationships this person has had with other people, institutions, and/or events that support using them as the subject for a case study research paper. It is particularly important to differentiate the person as the subject of analysis from others and to succinctly explain how the person relates to examining the research problem [e.g., why is one politician in a particular local election used to show an increase in voter turnout from any other candidate running in the election]. Note that these issues apply to a specific group of people used as a case study unit of analysis [e.g., a classroom of students].

If your subject of analysis is a place. In general, a case study that investigates a place suggests a subject of analysis that is unique or special in some way and that this uniqueness can be used to build new understanding or knowledge about the research problem. A case study of a place must not only describe its various attributes relevant to the research problem [e.g., physical, social, historical, cultural, economic, political], but you must state the method by which you determined that this place will illuminate new understandings about the research problem. It is also important to articulate why a particular place as the case for study is being used if similar places also exist [i.e., if you are studying patterns of homeless encampments of veterans in open spaces, explain why you are studying Echo Park in Los Angeles rather than Griffith Park?]. If applicable, describe what type of human activity involving this place makes it a good choice to study [e.g., prior research suggests Echo Park has more homeless veterans].

If your subject of analysis is a phenomenon. A phenomenon refers to a fact, occurrence, or circumstance that can be studied or observed but with the cause or explanation to be in question. In this sense, a phenomenon that forms your subject of analysis can encompass anything that can be observed or presumed to exist but is not fully understood. In the social and behavioral sciences, the case usually focuses on human interaction within a complex physical, social, economic, cultural, or political system. For example, the phenomenon could be the observation that many vehicles used by ISIS fighters are small trucks with English language advertisements on them. The research problem could be that ISIS fighters are difficult to combat because they are highly mobile. The research questions could be how and by what means are these vehicles used by ISIS being supplied to the militants and how might supply lines to these vehicles be cut off? How might knowing the suppliers of these trucks reveal larger networks of collaborators and financial support? A case study of a phenomenon most often encompasses an in-depth analysis of a cause and effect that is grounded in an interactive relationship between people and their environment in some way.

NOTE:   The choice of the case or set of cases to study cannot appear random. Evidence that supports the method by which you identified and chose your subject of analysis should clearly support investigation of the research problem and linked to key findings from your literature review. Be sure to cite any studies that helped you determine that the case you chose was appropriate for examining the problem.

IV.  Discussion

The main elements of your discussion section are generally the same as any research paper, but centered around interpreting and drawing conclusions about the key findings from your analysis of the case study. Note that a general social sciences research paper may contain a separate section to report findings. However, in a paper designed around a case study, it is common to combine a description of the results with the discussion about their implications. The objectives of your discussion section should include the following:

Reiterate the Research Problem/State the Major Findings Briefly reiterate the research problem you are investigating and explain why the subject of analysis around which you designed the case study were used. You should then describe the findings revealed from your study of the case using direct, declarative, and succinct proclamation of the study results. Highlight any findings that were unexpected or especially profound.

Explain the Meaning of the Findings and Why They are Important Systematically explain the meaning of your case study findings and why you believe they are important. Begin this part of the section by repeating what you consider to be your most important or surprising finding first, then systematically review each finding. Be sure to thoroughly extrapolate what your analysis of the case can tell the reader about situations or conditions beyond the actual case that was studied while, at the same time, being careful not to misconstrue or conflate a finding that undermines the external validity of your conclusions.

Relate the Findings to Similar Studies No study in the social sciences is so novel or possesses such a restricted focus that it has absolutely no relation to previously published research. The discussion section should relate your case study results to those found in other studies, particularly if questions raised from prior studies served as the motivation for choosing your subject of analysis. This is important because comparing and contrasting the findings of other studies helps support the overall importance of your results and it highlights how and in what ways your case study design and the subject of analysis differs from prior research about the topic.

Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings Remember that the purpose of social science research is to discover and not to prove. When writing the discussion section, you should carefully consider all possible explanations revealed by the case study results, rather than just those that fit your hypothesis or prior assumptions and biases. Be alert to what the in-depth analysis of the case may reveal about the research problem, including offering a contrarian perspective to what scholars have stated in prior research if that is how the findings can be interpreted from your case.

Acknowledge the Study's Limitations You can state the study's limitations in the conclusion section of your paper but describing the limitations of your subject of analysis in the discussion section provides an opportunity to identify the limitations and explain why they are not significant. This part of the discussion section should also note any unanswered questions or issues your case study could not address. More detailed information about how to document any limitations to your research can be found here .

Suggest Areas for Further Research Although your case study may offer important insights about the research problem, there are likely additional questions related to the problem that remain unanswered or findings that unexpectedly revealed themselves as a result of your in-depth analysis of the case. Be sure that the recommendations for further research are linked to the research problem and that you explain why your recommendations are valid in other contexts and based on the original assumptions of your study.

V.  Conclusion

As with any research paper, you should summarize your conclusion in clear, simple language; emphasize how the findings from your case study differs from or supports prior research and why. Do not simply reiterate the discussion section. Provide a synthesis of key findings presented in the paper to show how these converge to address the research problem. If you haven't already done so in the discussion section, be sure to document the limitations of your case study and any need for further research.

The function of your paper's conclusion is to: 1) reiterate the main argument supported by the findings from your case study; 2) state clearly the context, background, and necessity of pursuing the research problem using a case study design in relation to an issue, controversy, or a gap found from reviewing the literature; and, 3) provide a place to persuasively and succinctly restate the significance of your research problem, given that the reader has now been presented with in-depth information about the topic.

Consider the following points to help ensure your conclusion is appropriate:

• If the argument or purpose of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize these points for your reader.
• If prior to your conclusion, you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the conclusion of your paper to describe your main points and explain their significance.
• Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration of the case study's findings that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction or within a new context that emerges from your case study findings.

Note that, depending on the discipline you are writing in or the preferences of your professor, the concluding paragraph may contain your final reflections on the evidence presented as it applies to practice or on the essay's central research problem. However, the nature of being introspective about the subject of analysis you have investigated will depend on whether you are explicitly asked to express your observations in this way.

Problems to Avoid

Overgeneralization One of the goals of a case study is to lay a foundation for understanding broader trends and issues applied to similar circumstances. However, be careful when drawing conclusions from your case study. They must be evidence-based and grounded in the results of the study; otherwise, it is merely speculation. Looking at a prior example, it would be incorrect to state that a factor in improving girls access to education in Azerbaijan and the policy implications this may have for improving access in other Muslim nations is due to girls access to social media if there is no documentary evidence from your case study to indicate this. There may be anecdotal evidence that retention rates were better for girls who were engaged with social media, but this observation would only point to the need for further research and would not be a definitive finding if this was not a part of your original research agenda.

Failure to Document Limitations No case is going to reveal all that needs to be understood about a research problem. Therefore, just as you have to clearly state the limitations of a general research study , you must describe the specific limitations inherent in the subject of analysis. For example, the case of studying how women conceptualize the need for water conservation in a village in Uganda could have limited application in other cultural contexts or in areas where fresh water from rivers or lakes is plentiful and, therefore, conservation is understood more in terms of managing access rather than preserving access to a scarce resource.

Failure to Extrapolate All Possible Implications Just as you don't want to over-generalize from your case study findings, you also have to be thorough in the consideration of all possible outcomes or recommendations derived from your findings. If you do not, your reader may question the validity of your analysis, particularly if you failed to document an obvious outcome from your case study research. For example, in the case of studying the accident at the railroad crossing to evaluate where and what types of warning signals should be located, you failed to take into consideration speed limit signage as well as warning signals. When designing your case study, be sure you have thoroughly addressed all aspects of the problem and do not leave gaps in your analysis that leave the reader questioning the results.

Case Studies. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Gerring, John. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Merriam, Sharan B. Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education . Rev. ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998; Miller, Lisa L. “The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 14 (2018): TBD; Mills, Albert J., Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Putney, LeAnn Grogan. "Case Study." In Encyclopedia of Research Design , Neil J. Salkind, editor. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010), pp. 116-120; Simons, Helen. Case Study Research in Practice . London: SAGE Publications, 2009;  Kratochwill,  Thomas R. and Joel R. Levin, editors. Single-Case Research Design and Analysis: New Development for Psychology and Education .  Hilldsale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992; Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London : SAGE, 2010; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 6th edition. Los Angeles, CA, SAGE Publications, 2014; Walo, Maree, Adrian Bull, and Helen Breen. “Achieving Economic Benefits at Local Events: A Case Study of a Local Sports Event.” Festival Management and Event Tourism 4 (1996): 95-106.

Writing Tip

At Least Five Misconceptions about Case Study Research

Social science case studies are often perceived as limited in their ability to create new knowledge because they are not randomly selected and findings cannot be generalized to larger populations. Flyvbjerg examines five misunderstandings about case study research and systematically "corrects" each one. To quote, these are:

Misunderstanding 1 :  General, theoretical [context-independent] knowledge is more valuable than concrete, practical [context-dependent] knowledge. Misunderstanding 2 :  One cannot generalize on the basis of an individual case; therefore, the case study cannot contribute to scientific development. Misunderstanding 3 :  The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses; that is, in the first stage of a total research process, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building. Misunderstanding 4 :  The case study contains a bias toward verification, that is, a tendency to confirm the researcher’s preconceived notions. Misunderstanding 5 :  It is often difficult to summarize and develop general propositions and theories on the basis of specific case studies [p. 221].

While writing your paper, think introspectively about how you addressed these misconceptions because to do so can help you strengthen the validity and reliability of your research by clarifying issues of case selection, the testing and challenging of existing assumptions, the interpretation of key findings, and the summation of case outcomes. Think of a case study research paper as a complete, in-depth narrative about the specific properties and key characteristics of your subject of analysis applied to the research problem.

Flyvbjerg, Bent. “Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12 (April 2006): 219-245.

• << Previous: Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Next: Writing a Field Report >>
• Last Updated: Jun 3, 2024 9:44 AM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments

Case Study Methods and Examples

By Janet Salmons, PhD Manager, Sage Research Methods Community

What is Case Study Methodology ?

Case studies in research are both unique and uniquely confusing. The term case study is confusing because the same term is used multiple ways. The term can refer to the methodology, that is, a system of frameworks used to design a study, or the methods used to conduct it. Or, case study can refer to a type of academic writing that typically delves into a problem, process, or situation.

Case study methodology can entail the study of one or more "cases," that could be described as instances, examples, or settings where the problem or phenomenon can be examined. The researcher is tasked with defining the parameters of the case, that is, what is included and excluded. This process is called bounding the case , or setting boundaries.

Case study can be combined with other methodologies, such as ethnography, grounded theory, or phenomenology. In such studies the research on the case uses another framework to further define the study and refine the approach.

Case study is also described as a method, given particular approaches used to collect and analyze data. Case study research is conducted by almost every social science discipline: business, education, sociology, psychology. Case study research, with its reliance on multiple sources, is also a natural choice for researchers interested in trans-, inter-, or cross-disciplinary studies.

The Encyclopedia of case study research provides an overview:

The purpose of case study research is twofold: (1) to provide descriptive information and (2) to suggest theoretical relevance. Rich description enables an in-depth or sharpened understanding of the case.

It is unique given one characteristic: case studies draw from more than one data source. Case studies are inherently multimodal or mixed methods because this they use either more than one form of data within a research paradigm, or more than one form of data from different paradigms.

A case study inquiry could include multiple types of data:

multiple forms of quantitative data sources, such as Big Data + a survey

multiple forms of qualitative data sources, such as interviews + observations + documents

multiple forms of quantitative and qualitative data sources, such as surveys + interviews

Case study methodology can be used to achieve different research purposes.

Robert Yin , methodologist most associated with case study research, differentiates between descriptive , exploratory and explanatory case studies:

Descriptive : A case study whose purpose is to describe a phenomenon. Explanatory : A case study whose purpose is to explain how or why some condition came to be, or why some sequence of events occurred or did not occur. Exploratory: A case study whose purpose is to identify the research questions or procedures to be used in a subsequent study.

Robert Yin’s book is a comprehensive guide for case study researchers!

You can read the preface and Chapter 1 of Yin's book here . See the open-access articles below for some published examples of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods case study research.

Mills, A. J., Durepos, G., & Wiebe, E. (2010).  Encyclopedia of case study research (Vols. 1-0). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412957397

Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Open-Access Articles Using Case Study Methodology

As you can see from this collection, case study methods are used in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research.

Ang, C.-S., Lee, K.-F., & Dipolog-Ubanan, G. F. (2019). Determinants of First-Year Student Identity and Satisfaction in Higher Education: A Quantitative Case Study. SAGE Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019846689

Abstract. First-year undergraduates’ expectations and experience of university and student engagement variables were investigated to determine how these perceptions influence their student identity and overall course satisfaction. Data collected from 554 first-year undergraduates at a large private university were analyzed. Participants were given the adapted version of the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education Survey to self-report their learning experience and engagement in the university community. The results showed that, in general, the students’ reasons of pursuing tertiary education were to open the door to career opportunities and skill development. Moreover, students’ views on their learning and university engagement were at the moderate level. In relation to student identity and overall student satisfaction, it is encouraging to state that their perceptions of studentship and course satisfaction were rather positive. After controlling for demographics, student engagement appeared to explain more variance in student identity, whereas students’ expectations and experience explained greater variance in students’ overall course satisfaction. Implications for practice, limitations, and recommendation of this study are addressed.

Baker, A. J. (2017). Algorithms to Assess Music Cities: Case Study—Melbourne as a Music Capital. SAGE Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017691801

Abstract. The global  Mastering of a Music City  report in 2015 notes that the concept of music cities has penetrated the global political vernacular because it delivers “significant economic, employment, cultural and social benefits.” This article highlights that no empirical study has combined all these values and offers a relevant and comprehensive definition of a music city. Drawing on industry research,1 the article assesses how mathematical flowcharts, such as Algorithm A (Economics), Algorithm B (Four T’s creative index), and Algorithm C (Heritage), have contributed to the definition of a music city. Taking Melbourne as a case study, it illustrates how Algorithms A and B are used as disputed evidence about whether the city is touted as Australia’s music capital. The article connects the three algorithms to an academic framework from musicology, urban studies, cultural economics, and sociology, and proposes a benchmark Algorithm D (Music Cities definition), which offers a more holistic assessment of music activity in any urban context. The article concludes by arguing that Algorithm D offers a much-needed definition of what comprises a music city because it builds on the popular political economy focus and includes the social importance of space and cultural practices.

Brown, K., & Mondon, A. (2020). Populism, the media, and the mainstreaming of the far right: The Guardian’s coverage of populism as a case study. Politics. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395720955036

Abstract. Populism seems to define our current political age. The term is splashed across the headlines, brandished in political speeches and commentaries, and applied extensively in numerous academic publications and conferences. This pervasive usage, or populist hype, has serious implications for our understanding of the meaning of populism itself and for our interpretation of the phenomena to which it is applied. In particular, we argue that its common conflation with far-right politics, as well as its breadth of application to other phenomena, has contributed to the mainstreaming of the far right in three main ways: (1) agenda-setting power and deflection, (2) euphemisation and trivialisation, and (3) amplification. Through a mixed-methods approach to discourse analysis, this article uses  The Guardian  newspaper as a case study to explore the development of the populist hype and the detrimental effects of the logics that it has pushed in public discourse.

Droy, L. T., Goodwin, J., & O’Connor, H. (2020). Methodological Uncertainty and Multi-Strategy Analysis: Case Study of the Long-Term Effects of Government Sponsored Youth Training on Occupational Mobility. Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, 147–148(1–2), 200–230. https://doi.org/10.1177/0759106320939893

Abstract. Sociological practitioners often face considerable methodological uncertainty when undertaking a quantitative analysis. This methodological uncertainty encompasses both data construction (e.g. defining variables) and analysis (e.g. selecting and specifying a modelling procedure). Methodological uncertainty can lead to results that are fragile and arbitrary. Yet, many practitioners may be unaware of the potential scale of methodological uncertainty in quantitative analysis, and the recent emergence of techniques for addressing it. Recent proposals for ‘multi-strategy’ approaches seek to identify and manage methodological uncertainty in quantitative analysis. We present a case-study of a multi-strategy analysis, applied to the problem of estimating the long-term impact of 1980s UK government-sponsored youth training. We use this case study to further highlight the problem of cumulative methodological fragilities in applied quantitative sociology and to discuss and help develop multi-strategy analysis as a tool to address them.

Ebneyamini, S., & Sadeghi Moghadam, M. R. (2018). Toward Developing a Framework for Conducting Case Study Research .  International Journal of Qualitative Methods .  https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406918817954

Abstract. This article reviews the use of case study research for both practical and theoretical issues especially in management field with the emphasis on management of technology and innovation. Many researchers commented on the methodological issues of the case study research from their point of view thus, presenting a comprehensive framework was missing. We try representing a general framework with methodological and analytical perspective to design, develop, and conduct case study research. To test the coverage of our framework, we have analyzed articles in three major journals related to the management of technology and innovation to approve our framework. This study represents a general structure to guide, design, and fulfill a case study research with levels and steps necessary for researchers to use in their research.

Lai, D., & Roccu, R. (2019). Case study research and critical IR: the case for the extended case methodology. International Relations , 33 (1), 67-87. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117818818243

Abstract. Discussions on case study methodology in International Relations (IR) have historically been dominated by positivist and neopositivist approaches. However, these are problematic for critical IR research, pointing to the need for a non-positivist case study methodology. To address this issue, this article introduces and adapts the extended case methodology as a critical, reflexivist approach to case study research, whereby the case is constructed through a dynamic interaction with theory, rather than selected, and knowledge is produced through extensions rather than generalisation. Insofar as it seeks to study the world in complex and non-linear terms, take context and positionality seriously, and generate explicitly political and emancipatory knowledge, the extended case methodology is consistent with the ontological and epistemological commitments of several critical IR approaches. Its potential is illustrated in the final part of the article with reference to researching the socioeconomic dimension of transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Lynch, R., Young, J. C., Boakye-Achampong, S., Jowaisas, C., Sam, J., & Norlander, B. (2020). Benefits of crowdsourcing for libraries: A case study from Africa . IFLA Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035220944940

Abstract. Many libraries in the Global South do not collect comprehensive data about themselves, which creates challenges in terms of local and international visibility. Crowdsourcing is an effective tool that engages the public to collect missing data, and it has proven to be particularly valuable in countries where governments collect little public data. Whereas crowdsourcing is often used within fields that have high levels of development funding, such as health, the authors believe that this approach would have many benefits for the library field as well. They present qualitative and quantitative evidence from 23 African countries involved in a crowdsourcing project to map libraries. The authors find benefits in terms of increased connections between stakeholders, capacity-building, and increased local visibility. These findings demonstrate the potential of crowdsourced approaches for tasks such as mapping to benefit libraries and similarly positioned institutions in the Global South in multifaceted ways.

Mason, W., Morris, K., Webb, C., Daniels, B., Featherstone, B., Bywaters, P., Mirza, N., Hooper, J., Brady, G., Bunting, L., & Scourfield, J. (2020). Toward Full Integration of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Case Study Research: Insights From Investigating Child Welfare Inequalities. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 14 (2), 164-183. https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689819857972

Abstract. Delineation of the full integration of quantitative and qualitative methods throughout all stages of multisite mixed methods case study projects remains a gap in the methodological literature. This article offers advances to the field of mixed methods by detailing the application and integration of mixed methods throughout all stages of one such project; a study of child welfare inequalities. By offering a critical discussion of site selection and the management of confirmatory, expansionary and discordant data, this article contributes to the limited body of mixed methods exemplars specific to this field. We propose that our mixed methods approach provided distinctive insights into a complex social problem, offering expanded understandings of the relationship between poverty, child abuse, and neglect.

Rashid, Y., Rashid, A., Warraich, M. A., Sabir, S. S., & Waseem, A. (2019). Case Study Method: A Step-by-Step Guide for Business Researchers .  International Journal of Qualitative Methods .  https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919862424

Abstract. Qualitative case study methodology enables researchers to conduct an in-depth exploration of intricate phenomena within some specific context. By keeping in mind research students, this article presents a systematic step-by-step guide to conduct a case study in the business discipline. Research students belonging to said discipline face issues in terms of clarity, selection, and operationalization of qualitative case study while doing their final dissertation. These issues often lead to confusion, wastage of valuable time, and wrong decisions that affect the overall outcome of the research. This article presents a checklist comprised of four phases, that is, foundation phase, prefield phase, field phase, and reporting phase. The objective of this article is to provide novice researchers with practical application of this checklist by linking all its four phases with the authors’ experiences and learning from recently conducted in-depth multiple case studies in the organizations of New Zealand. Rather than discussing case study in general, a targeted step-by-step plan with real-time research examples to conduct a case study is given.

VanWynsberghe, R., & Khan, S. (2007). Redefining Case Study. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 80–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690700600208

Abstract. In this paper the authors propose a more precise and encompassing definition of case study than is usually found. They support their definition by clarifying that case study is neither a method nor a methodology nor a research design as suggested by others. They use a case study prototype of their own design to propose common properties of case study and demonstrate how these properties support their definition. Next, they present several living myths about case study and refute them in relation to their definition. Finally, they discuss the interplay between the terms case study and unit of analysis to further delineate their definition of case study. The target audiences for this paper include case study researchers, research design and methods instructors, and graduate students interested in case study research.

More Sage Research Methods Community Posts about Case Study Research

Use research cases as the basis for individual or team activities that build skills.

Find an 10-step process for using research cases to teach methods with learning activities for individual students, teams, or small groups. (Or use the approach yourself!)

How do you decide which methodology fits your study? In this dialogue Linda Bloomberg and Janet Boberg explain the importance of a strategic approach to qualitative research design that stresses alignment with the purpose of the study.

Case study methods are used by researchers in many disciplines. Here are some open-access articles about multimodal qualitative or mixed methods designs that include both qualitative and quantitative elements.

Case study methodology is both unique, and uniquely confusing. It is unique given one characteristic: case studies draw from more than one data source.

What is case study methodology? It is unique given one characteristic: case studies draw from more than one data source. In this post find definitions and a collection of multidisciplinary examples.

Find discussion of case studies and published examples.

Istanbul as a regional computational social science hub

Experiments and quantitative research.

Gale Case Studies

Looking to the past to make sense of today, engage students and encourage critical thinking.

Gale Case Studies addresses contemporary social issues, providing expert commentary and historical context to promote critical thinking around timely topics organized into course ready modules centered around primary source documents.

Six topically focused modules prepare students for future careers and promote the growth of transferrable skills by encouraging them to think analytically about topics related to LGBTQ rights, public health concerns, political extremism, women’s studies and race.

Higher education prepares students before they enter a challenging, unpredictable world. Universities and colleges can provide students with educational resources that will help them become better analytical thinkers and problem solvers outside of the classroom. Many leading educators see teaching case studies as an effective way for students to practice their critical thinking skills. Academically, a case study is a thorough examination of a specific subject or problem, and this method of learning is popular in the fields of health administration, political science, and social work among others. Teaching case studies can help students put theories into practice and is often useful in identifying problems not revealed through a more traditional approach.

Gale Case Studies was created by university faculty and developed specifically for the classroom. This new higher education tool gives undergraduate students the chance to sharpen their critical-thinking skills by using historical content to evaluate and discuss contemporary social issues within the educational context of a case study. Gale Case Studies not only promotes the development of transferable skills; it also encourages students to think analytically as they explore crucial topics, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights; gender identity development and sexual orientation; systemic racism; public health; urban development; political extremism; and diversity in the workplace. In addition, this resource allows university faculty and administration to expose students to a process of study not typically seen in the classroom.

Each module of Gale Case Studies is organized by topic and supported by a curated collection of primary sources. Students and faculty can access case studies, related discussion questions, and links to curated content. Teaching case studies complements traditional higher education practices and it also makes remote and online learning more accessible to all students. The Learning Management Systems (LMS) integration adds to the accessibility of this resource. Learning materials can be seamlessly embedded into the academic workflow without the need for a separate application. Students can prepare for informed, course-related discussions; develop problem-solving skills; and grow more confident using primary sources for classroom projects and research papers.

Topics Covered:

Intersectional LGBTQ Issues

Public Health Issues

Political Extremism

Race and Civil Rights

Refugees and Migration

Women's Issues

Platform Features:

LMS Integration

Enables instructors to easily access and link to pertinent content directly within their LMS. Plus, persistent URLs give users added confidence in knowing the content will never disappear. 

Curated Content

Topics and sources are carefully chosen by an editor-in-chief and academic instructor and/or faculty member for quality of content, accuracy, and learning approach.

Discussion Questions

Discussion questions are provided at the end of the workflow to create prompts for students to analyze case-based primary sources and teaching topics.

Guided Experience

Instructors and students are guided through the workflow by an intuitive experience that fosters learning through both primary sources and discussion questions that promote further research.

Image Viewer

Users can look at the primary source content, such as images, handwritten letters, or newspaper articles as they were originally published to better understand the historical context.

Cross-Search Capability

Students and instructors can search across content from complementary modules in one intuitive environment and make new research connections.

Explore More:

Read the Article

Look Inside

Gale Case Studies main navigation page

Sample of case studies found in Intersectional LGBTQ Issues module

Sample case study found in Intersectional LGBTQ Issues module

Sample of primary sources available in Intersectional LGBTQ Issues module

Additional Details

Subjects covered.

• Public Health
• Women's Studies

SUPPORT MATERIAL

Watch Video

Read Article

Meet the Contributors

Download Fact Sheet

MODULE FACT SHEETS

Reviews & testimonials.

“A set of case studies like  Gale Case Studies  and its archival material can help scholars to keep framing why the humanities are relevant—they are relevant for social change, they are relevant for understanding and analyzing public policy and the impact on people’s lives . . . this is the kind of thing that can help us show students how relevant this is and why it’s important to be engaged in humanities research.”   - Danielle DeMuth, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Grand Valley State University

Your browser is not supported

Sorry but it looks as if your browser is out of date. To get the best experience using our site we recommend that you upgrade or switch browsers.

Find a solution

We use cookies to improve your experience on this website. To learn more, including how to block cookies, read our privacy policy .

• Skip to main content
• Skip to navigation
• Collaboration Platform
• Data Portal
• Reporting Tool
• PRI Academy
• PRI Applications

• Back to parent navigation item
• What are the Principles for Responsible Investment?
• PRI 2024-27 strategy
• A blueprint for responsible investment
• About the PRI
• Annual report
• Public communications policy
• Financial information
• Procurement
• PRI sustainability
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for our employees
• Meet the team
• Board members
• Board committees
• PRI Board annual elections
• Signatory General Meeting (SGM)
• Signatory rights
• Serious violations policy
• Formal consultations
• Signatories
• Signatory resources
• Become a signatory
• Get involved
• Signatory directory
• Quarterly signatory update
• Multi-lingual resources
• Espacio Hispanohablante
• Programme Francophone
• Reporting & assessment
• R&A Updates
• Public signatory reports
• Progression pathways
• Showcasing leadership
• The PRI Awards
• News & events
• The PRI podcast
• News & press
• Upcoming events
• PRI in Person 2024
• All events & webinars
• Industry events
• Past events
• PRI in Person 2023 highlights
• PRI in Person & Online 2022 highlights
• PRI Digital Forums
• Investing for sustainability and the UK transition
• Webinars on demand
• Investment tools
• Introductory guides to responsible investment
• Principles to Practice
• Stewardship
• Collaborative engagements
• Active Ownership 2.0
• Listed equity
• Passive investments
• Fixed income
• Credit risk and ratings
• Private debt
• Securitised debt
• Sovereign debt
• Sub-sovereign debt
• Private markets
• Private equity
• Real estate
• Climate change for private markets
• Infrastructure and other real assets
• Infrastructure
• Hedge funds
• Investing for nature: Resource hub
• Asset owner resources
• Strategy, policy and strategic asset allocation
• Mandate requirements and RfPs
• Manager selection
• Manager appointment
• Manager monitoring
• Asset owner DDQs
• Sustainability issues
• Environmental, social and governance issues
• Environmental issues
• Circular economy
• Social issues

Social issues - case studies

• Social issues - podcasts
• Social issues - webinars
• Social issues - blogs
• Cobalt and the extractives industry
• Clothing and Apparel Supply Chain
• Human rights
• Human rights - case studies
• Modern slavery and labour rights
• Just transition
• Governance issues
• Tax fairness
• Responsible political engagement
• Cyber security
• Executive pay
• Corporate purpose
• Anti-corruption
• Whistleblowing
• Director nominations
• Climate change
• The PRI and COP28
• Inevitable Policy Response
• UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance
• Sustainability outcomes
• Sustainable Development Goals
• Sustainable markets
• Sustainable financial system
• Driving meaningful data
• Private retirement systems and sustainability
• Academic blogs
• Academic Seminar series
• Introduction to responsible investing academic research
• The Reynolds & Gifford PRI Grant
• Our policy approach
• Policy reports
• Consultations and letters
• Global policy
• Policy toolkit
• Policy engagement handbook
• Regulation database
• A Legal Framework for Impact
• Taskforce on Net Zero Policy
• Australia policy
• Canada Policy
• China policy
• Stewardship in China
• EU taxonomy
• Japan policy
• SEC ESG-Related Disclosure

• More from navigation items

Mirova: Using the SDGs to accelerate sustainable economic transformation

2023-06-05T10:43:00+01:00

SDG outcomes case study

Jupiter Asset Management: Incorporating human rights considerations into sovereign debt analysis

2023-01-24T10:39:00+00:00

Human rights case study

Frazier Healthcare Partners: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Advancement Scorecard

2023-01-18T14:55:00+00:00

Monitoring portfolio companies’ progress on DEIA

Harrison Street: Leveraging building design and operations to enhance occupant health

2023-01-18T11:51:00+00:00

Measuring the sustainability performance of senior housing properties

EcoEnterprises Fund: Cultivating gender-inclusive investments

2023-01-16T12:17:00+00:00

Financing female-led companies and developing female business leadership in Latin America

Sycomore Asset Management: Assessing the societal contribution of companies

2022-12-12T12:16:00+00:00

ACSI: Improving standards of company engagement with First Nations people

2022-12-01T09:39:00+00:00

Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, in collaboration with its members, working to mitigate the risks of harm to cultural heritage

Bridge Investment Group: Workforce and affordable housing strategy

2022-12-01T09:38:00+00:00

A private scalable market solution for preserving and rehabilitating housing and dedicated social programming for America’s workforce

SEB Investment Management: Sustainability Score

2022-12-01T09:35:00+00:00

In 2020, SEB Investment Management initiated a collaboration across teams and asset classes to create a proprietary sustainability model

AllianceBernstein: ESG engagement campaign on modern slavery

2022-12-01T09:29:00+00:00

Engaging with issuers on modern slavery to push for positive change

Volery Capital Partners: Economic inclusion

2022-10-18T08:35:00+01:00

MPower Partners: Supporting start-ups in their ESG journey

2022-09-20T16:05:00+01:00

MPower explains its approach to integrating ESG factors in different stages of the investment process.

Sofinnova Partners: Our evolving ESG philosophy as an early-stage venture capital investor

2022-07-04T14:00:00+01:00

Sofinnova Partners on why and how it assesses the ESG maturity of its companies at each phase of their development.

Öhman Fonder and Folksam: Taking on Amazon’s approach to human rights

2022-06-17T10:35:00+01:00

Southern Asset Management: fixed income engagement in the Chinese context

2022-05-25T01:00:00+01:00

Case study by Southern Asset Management (SAM)

Manulife Investment Management: enhancing gender diversity in Chinese holdings

Case study by Manulife Investment Management

EOS at Federated Hermes: promoting human capital management through engagement

Case study by EOS at Federated Hermes

Harvest Fund Management: Exercising stewardship to drive transitions towards carbon neutrality

Case study by Harvest Fund Management

Fidelity International: Early-stage stewardship in the Chinese market

Case study by Fidelity International

E Fund Management: improving corporate governance in China through engagement

Case study by E Fund

ChinaAMC: Improving ESG performance via engagement

Case study by ChinaAMC

BPEA: Driving solutions to plastic issues in the Chinese market

Case study by BPEA

BlackRock: addressing ESG risks in China’s energy sector

Case study by BlackRock

Wafra: Taking a holistic approach to ESG diligence in venture capital

2022-04-13T06:00:00+01:00

Wafra Inc. discusses its practical approach to ESG integration, which focuses on financially or operationally material issues.

Fin Capital: ESG incorporation in venture capital investment

Fin Capital on why ESG metrics are as important as financial measurements and how it works with companies to close any identified gaps.

Openspace Ventures: ESG value creation work at start-ups

Openspace Ventures on how it works with companies to create long-term value creation strategies that can scale sustainable businesses.

Glasswing Ventures: Driving DEI adoption in venture capital

Glasswing Ventures highlights its approach to engaging in and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion activities within its firm and portfolio companies.

The Westly Group: Helping to build diverse teams for the future

The Westly Group highlights how its diversity work across deal sourcing, due diligence, portfolio management and internal hiring is starting to deliver notable results.

Rathbones: Votes against slavery

2022-02-10T08:49:00+00:00

AkademikerPension: Responsible investment in sovereign bonds

2021-11-19T07:57:00+00:00

LACERA: Integrating diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the investment process

2021-11-19T07:55:00+00:00

Dai-ichi Life: Our approach to human rights as a responsible investor

VFMC: Tackling modern slavery through external manager engagement

Illinois State Treasurer: Assessing equity, diversity and inclusion among business partners

ABN AMRO: Developing a human rights risk register

2021-11-19T06:49:00+00:00

Inclusive growth

2021-11-02T13:21:00+00:00

Case study by BNP Paribas Asset Management

Green-leader or green-washer? Using AI to prioritise company engagements

2021-11-02T13:17:00+00:00

Case study by Acadian Asset Management

Norsad Finance

2021-11-02T09:17:00+00:00

Case study by Norsad Finance

“Preserve, Strengthen, Rebuild” COVID-19 Response

2021-11-02T09:02:00+00:00

Case study by CDC Group

Collaborative engagement with the social media companies

2021-11-02T08:54:00+00:00

Case study by NZ Super Fund

Sustainalytics - 10 for 2021 - Investing in the Circular Food Economy

2021-11-02T08:45:00+00:00

Case study by Sustainalytics

Engagement International: Addressing responsible tax

2021-10-20T07:56:00+01:00

Engagement International helps institutional investors act as active responsible owners through corporate engagement.

MN: Collaborating through Platform Living Wage Financials

2021-10-20T07:53:00+01:00

As an investment manager for pension funds, we look to create long-term value for our clients and their beneficiaries and consider stewardship as central to realising this.

BlackRock: Active community engagement in infrastructure investing

2021-09-10T11:44:00+01:00

Coller Capital: Leveraging influence for human rights on private markets

2021-08-31T08:37:00+01:00

The private capital secondaries market is becoming more influential, presenting an opportunity from an ESG perspective, including human rights promotion.

PAI Partners: Defending human rights in the supply chain

2021-08-31T07:33:00+01:00

StepStone: Considering labour, land and data rights in ESG analysis

Polaris: Respecting human rights in private equity

2021-08-31T07:30:00+01:00

FSN Capital: Identifying and addressing human rights in the value chain

Abris: Incorporating human rights in the investment lifecycle

A scalable private market solution for preserving and rehabilitating housing for America’s “missing middle” – Bridge Workforce and Affordable Housing Fund LP

2020-11-01T06:00:00+00:00

Case study by Bridge Investment Group

Coronavirus ESG monitor and dataset

Case study by Truvalue Labs

Engaging ICT companies to better protect children from sexual exploitation online

Case study by Christian Brothers Investment Services

AP2: Human Rights

2020-08-03T06:46:00+01:00

PRI Awards 2019 case study: Managing risk associated with modern slavery

2019-09-10T08:53:00+01:00

Company: CDC Group

PRI Awards 2019 case study: Kigali Bulk Water Supply Project

2019-09-10T08:52:00+01:00

Company: Investec Asset Management

Credit risk case study: Nikko Asset Management

2019-01-30T18:31:00+00:00

Case study by Nikko Asset Management

Delivering social and environmental impact in the healthcare sector

2019-01-08T09:55:00+00:00

Case study by AllianceBernstein

Affordable housing solutions in the Dutch care business

2019-01-08T09:00:00+00:00

Case study by Hartelt Fund Management

Credit risk case study: Coca Cola Amatil

2018-06-12T08:41:00+01:00

Case study by Pendal Group (formerly BT Investment Management)

Calculating labour standards' impact on revenue and discount rate

2016-09-05T00:00:00+01:00

Case study by Union Investment

CP Foods works to eradicate slavery in the Thai seafood supply chain

2016-06-09T15:57:00+01:00

Measuring employee engagement at Ahold - challenges and opportunities

2015-12-01T13:09:00+00:00

UN Global Compact companies on COP progress

2013-09-01T16:28:00+01:00

The Carbon Disclosure Project

2013-09-01T15:37:00+01:00

Global investors increase sustainability reporting among emerging market companies

2013-09-01T11:48:00+01:00

Engaging with electronics companies on sourcing conflict minerals

2013-09-01T11:23:00+01:00

• News and press
• Annual Report
• PRI governance
• Modern Slavery Statement
• Privacy policy
• The PRI is an investor initiative in partnership with UNEP Finance Initiative and UN Global Compact .

• PRI Association, 25 Camperdown Street, London, E1 8DZ, UK
• Company no: 7207947
• +44 (0)20 3714 3141
• [email protected]
• PRI DISCLAIMER The information contained on this website is meant for the purposes of information only and is not intended to be investment, legal, tax or other advice, nor is it intended to be relied upon in making an investment or other decision. All content is provided with the understanding that the authors and publishers are not providing advice on legal, economic, investment or other professional issues and services. PRI Association is not responsible for the content of websites and information resources that may be referenced. The access provided to these sites or the provision of such information resources does not constitute an endorsement by PRI Association of the information contained therein. PRI Association is not responsible for any errors or omissions, for any decision made or action taken based on information on this website or for any loss or damage arising from or caused by such decision or action. All information is provided “as-is” with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy or timeliness, or of the results obtained from the use of this information, and without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied. Content authored by PRI Association For content authored by PRI Association, except where expressly stated otherwise, the opinions, recommendations, findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed are those of PRI Association alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of any contributors or any signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investment (individually or as a whole). It should not be inferred that any other organisation referenced endorses or agrees with any conclusions set out. The inclusion of company examples does not in any way constitute an endorsement of these organisations by PRI Association or the signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investment. While we have endeavoured to ensure that information has been obtained from reliable and up-to-date sources, the changing nature of statistics, laws, rules and regulations may result in delays, omissions or inaccuracies in information. Content authored by third parties The accuracy of any content provided by an external contributor remains the responsibility of such external contributor. The views expressed in any content provided by external contributors are those of the external contributor(s) alone, and are neither endorsed by, nor necessarily correspond with, the views of PRI Association or any signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investment other than the external contributor(s) named as authors.

Site powered by Webvision Cloud

• First Online: 27 October 2022

Cite this chapter

• R. M. Channaveer 4 &
• Rajendra Baikady 5  

3131 Accesses

1 Citations

This chapter reviews the strengths and limitations of case study as a research method in social sciences. It provides an account of an evidence base to justify why a case study is best suitable for some research questions and why not for some other research questions. Case study designing around the research context, defining the structure and modality, conducting the study, collecting the data through triangulation mode, analysing the data, and interpreting the data and theory building at the end give a holistic view of it. In addition, the chapter also focuses on the types of case study and when and where to use case study as a research method in social science research.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime
• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Case Study Research

Ang, C. S., Lee, K. F., & Dipolog-Ubanan, G. F. (2019). Determinants of first-year student identity and satisfaction in higher education: A quantitative case study. SAGE Open, 9 (2), 215824401984668. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019846689

Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2015). Qualitative case study methodology: Study design and implementation for novice researchers. The Qualitative Report . Published. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2008.1573

Bhatta, T. P. (2018). Case study research, philosophical position and theory building: A methodological discussion. Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 12 , 72–79. https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v12i0.22182

Article   Google Scholar  

Bromley, P. D. (1990). Academic contributions to psychological counselling. A philosophy of science for the study of individual cases. Counselling Psychology Quarterly , 3 (3), 299–307.

Google Scholar  

Crowe, S., Cresswell, K., Robertson, A., Huby, G., Avery, A., & Sheikh, A. (2011). The case study approach. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 11 (1), 1–9.

Grässel, E., & Schirmer, B. (2006). The use of volunteers to support family carers of dementia patients: Results of a prospective longitudinal study investigating expectations towards and experience with training and professional support. Zeitschrift Fur Gerontologie Und Geriatrie, 39 (3), 217–226.

Greenwood, D., & Lowenthal, D. (2005). Case study as a means of researching social work and improving practitioner education. Journal of Social Work Practice, 19 (2), 181–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650530500144782

Gülseçen, S., & Kubat, A. (2006). Teaching ICT to teacher candidates using PBL: A qualitative and quantitative evaluation. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 9 (2), 96–106.

Gomm, R., Hammersley, M., & Foster, P. (2000). Case study and generalization. Case study method , 98–115.

Hamera, J., Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2011). Performance ethnography . SAGE.

Hayes, N. (2000). Doing psychological research (p. 133). Open University Press.

Harrison, H., Birks, M., Franklin, R., & Mills, J. (2017). Case study research: Foundations and methodological orientations. In Forum qualitative sozialforschung/forum: Qualitative social research (Vol. 18, No. 1).

Iwakabe, S., & Gazzola, N. (2009). From single-case studies to practice-based knowledge: Aggregating and synthesizing case studies. Psychotherapy Research, 19 (4–5), 601–611. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503300802688494

Johnson, M. P. (2006). Decision models for the location of community corrections centers. Environment and Planning b: Planning and Design, 33 (3), 393–412. https://doi.org/10.1068/b3125

Kaarbo, J., & Beasley, R. K. (1999). A practical guide to the comparative case study method in political psychology. Political Psychology, 20 (2), 369–391. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895x.00149

Lovell, G. I. (2006). Justice excused: The deployment of law in everyday political encounters. Law Society Review, 40 (2), 283–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5893.2006.00265.x

McDonough, S., & McDonough, S. (1997). Research methods as part of English language teacher education. English Language Teacher Education and Development, 3 (1), 84–96.

Meredith, J. (1998). Building operations management theory through case and field research. Journal of Operations Management, 16 (4), 441–454. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-6963(98)00023-0

Mills, A. J., Durepos, G., & Wiebe, E. (Eds.). (2009). Encyclopedia of case study research . Sage Publications.

Ochieng, P. A. (2009). An analysis of the strengths and limitation of qualitative and quantitative research paradigms. Problems of Education in the 21st Century , 13 , 13.

Page, E. B., Webb, E. J., Campell, D. T., Schwart, R. D., & Sechrest, L. (1966). Unobtrusive measures: Nonreactive research in the social sciences. American Educational Research Journal, 3 (4), 317. https://doi.org/10.2307/1162043

Rashid, Y., Rashid, A., Warraich, M. A., Sabir, S. S., & Waseem, A. (2019). Case study method: A step-by-step guide for business researchers. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18 , 160940691986242. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919862424

Ridder, H. G. (2017). The theory contribution of case study research designs. Business Research, 10 (2), 281–305. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-017-0045-z

Sadeghi Moghadam, M. R., Ghasemnia Arabi, N., & Khoshsima, G. (2021). A Review of case study method in operations management research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20 , 160940692110100. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211010088

Sommer, B. B., & Sommer, R. (1997). A practical guide to behavioral research: Tools and techniques . Oxford University Press.

Stake, R. E. (2010). Qualitative research: Studying how things work .

Stake, R. E. (1995). The Art of Case Study Research . Sage Publications.

Stoecker, R. (1991). Evaluating and rethinking the case study. The Sociological Review, 39 (1), 88–112.

Suryani, A. (2013). Comparing case study and ethnography as qualitative research approaches .

Taylor, S., & Berridge, V. (2006). Medicinal plants and malaria: An historical case study of research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the twentieth century. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 100 (8), 707–714. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trstmh.2005.11.017

Tellis, W. (1997). Introduction to case study. The Qualitative Report . Published. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/1997.2024

Towne, L., & Shavelson, R. J. (2002). Scientific research in education . National Academy Press Publications Sales Office.

Widdowson, M. D. J. (2011). Case study research methodology. International Journal of Transactional Analysis Research, 2 (1), 25–34.

Yin, R. K. (2004). The case study anthology . Sage.

Yin, R. K. (2003). Design and methods. Case Study Research , 3 (9.2).

Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Sage Publishing.

Yin, R. (1984). Case study research: Design and methods . Sage Publications Beverly Hills.

Yin, R. (1993). Applications of case study research . Sage Publishing.

Zainal, Z. (2003). An investigation into the effects of discipline-specific knowledge, proficiency and genre on reading comprehension and strategies of Malaysia ESP Students. Unpublished Ph. D. Thesis. University of Reading , 1 (1).

Zeisel, J. (1984). Inquiry by design: Tools for environment-behaviour research (No. 5). CUP archive.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Social Work, Central University of Karnataka, Kadaganchi, India

R. M. Channaveer

Department of Social Work, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

Rajendra Baikady

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. M. Channaveer .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Centre for Family and Child Studies, Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

M. Rezaul Islam

Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Niaz Ahmed Khan

Department of Social Work, School of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Channaveer, R.M., Baikady, R. (2022). Case Study. In: Islam, M.R., Khan, N.A., Baikady, R. (eds) Principles of Social Research Methodology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5441-2_21

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5441-2_21

Published : 27 October 2022

Publisher Name : Springer, Singapore

Print ISBN : 978-981-19-5219-7

Online ISBN : 978-981-19-5441-2

eBook Packages : Social Sciences Social Sciences (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

1.4 Doing Research on Social Problems

Learning objectives.

• List the major advantages and disadvantages of surveys, observational studies, and experiments.
• Explain why scholars who study social problems often rely on existing data.

Sound research is an essential tool for understanding the sources, dynamics, and consequences of social problems and possible solutions to them. This section briefly describes the major ways in which sociologists gather information about social problems. Table 1.2 “Major Sociological Research Methods” summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Table 1.2 Major Sociological Research Methods

The survey is the most common method by which sociologists gather their data. The Gallup poll is perhaps the most well-known example of a survey and, like all surveys, gathers its data with the help of a questionnaire that is given to a group of respondents . The Gallup poll is an example of a survey conducted by a private organization, but sociologists do their own surveys, as does the government and many organizations in addition to Gallup. Many surveys are administered to respondents who are randomly chosen and thus constitute a random sample . In a random sample, everyone in the population (whether it be the whole US population or just the population of a state or city, all the college students in a state or city or all the students at just one college, etc.) has the same chance of being included in the survey. The beauty of a random sample is that it allows us to generalize the results of the sample to the population from which the sample comes. This means that we can be fairly sure of the behavior and attitudes of the whole US population by knowing the behavior and attitudes of just four hundred people randomly chosen from that population.

Some surveys are face-to-face surveys, in which interviewers meet with respondents to ask them questions. This type of survey can yield much information, because interviewers typically will spend at least an hour asking their questions, and a high response rate (the percentage of all people in the sample who agree to be interviewed), which is important to be able to generalize the survey’s results to the entire population. On the downside, this type of survey can be very expensive and time consuming to conduct.

Surveys are very useful for gathering various kinds of information relevant to social problems. Advances in technology have made telephone surveys involving random-digit dialing perhaps the most popular way of conducting a survey.

plantronicsgermany – Encore520 call center man standing – CC BY-ND 2.0.

Because of these drawbacks, sociologists and other researchers have turned to telephone surveys. Most Gallup polls are conducted over the telephone. Computers do random-digit dialing, which results in a random sample of all telephone numbers being selected. Although the response rate and the number of questions asked are both lower than in face-to-face surveys (people can just hang up the phone at the outset or let their answering machine take the call), the ease and low expense of telephone surveys are making them increasingly popular. Surveys done over the Internet are also becoming more popular, as they can reach many people at very low expense. A major problem with web surveys is that their results cannot necessarily be generalized to the entire population because not everyone has access to the Internet.

Surveys are used in the study of social problems to gather information about the behavior and attitudes of people regarding one or more problems. For example, many surveys ask people about their use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs or about their experiences of being unemployed or in poor health. Many of the chapters in this book will present evidence gathered by surveys carried out by sociologists and other social scientists, various governmental agencies, and private research and public interest firms.

Experiments

Experiments are the primary form of research in the natural and physical sciences, but in the social sciences they are for the most part found only in psychology. Some sociologists still use experiments, however, and they remain a powerful tool of social research.

The major advantage of experiments, whether they are done in the natural and physical sciences or in the social sciences, is that the researcher can be fairly sure of a cause-and-effect relationship because of the way the experiment is set up. Although many different experimental designs exist, the typical experiment consists of an experimental group and a control group , with subjects randomly assigned to either group. The researcher does something to the experimental group that is not done to the control group. If the two groups differ later in some variable, then it is safe to say that the condition to which the experimental group was subjected was responsible for the difference that resulted.

Most experiments take place in the laboratory, which for psychologists may be a room with a one-way mirror, but some experiments occur in the field, or in a natural setting ( field experiments ). In Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early 1980s, sociologists were involved in a much-discussed field experiment sponsored by the federal government. The researchers wanted to see whether arresting men for domestic violence made it less likely that they would commit such violence again. To test this hypothesis, the researchers had police do one of the following after arriving at the scene of a domestic dispute: They either arrested the suspect, separated him from his wife or partner for several hours, or warned him to stop but did not arrest or separate him. The researchers then determined the percentage of men in each group who committed repeated domestic violence during the next six months and found that those who were arrested had the lowest rate of recidivism, or repeat offending (Sherman & Berk, 1984). This finding led many jurisdictions across the United States to adopt a policy of mandatory arrest for domestic violence suspects. However, replications of the Minneapolis experiment in other cities found that arrest sometimes reduced recidivism for domestic violence but also sometimes increased it, depending on which city was being studied and on certain characteristics of the suspects, including whether they were employed at the time of their arrest (Sherman, 1992).

As the Minneapolis study suggests, perhaps the most important problem with experiments is that their results are not generalizable beyond the specific subjects studied. The subjects in most psychology experiments, for example, are college students, who obviously are not typical of average Americans: They are younger, more educated, and more likely to be middle class. Despite this problem, experiments in psychology and other social sciences have given us very valuable insights into the sources of attitudes and behavior. Scholars of social problems are increasingly using field experiments to study the effectiveness of various policies and programs aimed at addressing social problems. We will examine the results of several such experiments in the chapters ahead.

Observational Studies

Observational research, also called field research , is a staple of sociology. Sociologists have long gone into the field to observe people and social settings, and the result has been many rich descriptions and analyses of behavior in juvenile gangs, bars, urban street corners, and even whole communities.

Observational studies consist of both participant observation and nonparticipant observation . Their names describe how they differ. In participant observation, the researcher is part of the group that she or he is studying, spends time with the group, and might even live with people in the group. Several classical social problems studies of this type exist, many of them involving people in urban neighborhoods (Liebow, 1967; Liebow, 1993; Whyte, 1943). In nonparticipant observation, the researcher observes a group of people but does not otherwise interact with them. If you went to your local shopping mall to observe, say, whether people walking with children looked happier than people without children, you would be engaging in nonparticipant observation.

Similar to experiments, observational studies cannot automatically be generalized to other settings or members of the population. But in many ways they provide a richer account of people’s lives than surveys do, and they remain an important method of research on social problems.

Existing Data

Sometimes sociologists do not gather their own data but instead analyze existing data that someone else has gathered. The US Census Bureau, for example, gathers data on all kinds of areas relevant to the lives of Americans, and many sociologists analyze census data on such social problems as poverty, unemployment, and illness. Sociologists interested in crime and the criminal justice system may analyze data from court records, while medical sociologists often analyze data from patient records at hospitals. Analysis of existing data such as these is called secondary data analysis . Its advantage to sociologists is that someone else has already spent the time and money to gather the data. A disadvantage is that the data set being analyzed may not contain data on all the topics in which a sociologist may be interested or may contain data on topics that are not measured in ways the sociologist might prefer.

The Scientific Method and Objectivity

This section began by stressing the need for sound research in the study of social problems. But what are the elements of sound research? At a minimum, such research should follow the rules of the scientific method . As you probably learned in high school and/or college science classes, these rules—formulating hypotheses, gathering and testing data, drawing conclusions, and so forth—help guarantee that research yields the most accurate and reliable conclusions possible.

An overriding principle of the scientific method is that research should be conducted as objectively as possible. Researchers are often passionate about their work, but they must take care not to let the findings they expect and even hope to uncover affect how they do their research. This in turn means that they must not conduct their research in a manner that helps achieve the results they expect to find. Such bias can happen unconsciously, and the scientific method helps reduce the potential for this bias as much as possible.

This potential is arguably greater in the social sciences than in the natural and physical sciences. The political views of chemists and physicists typically do not affect how an experiment is performed and how the outcome of the experiment is interpreted. In contrast, researchers in the social sciences, and perhaps particularly in sociology, often have strong feelings about the topics they are studying. Their social and political beliefs may thus influence how they perform their research on these topics and how they interpret the results of this research. Following the scientific method helps reduce this possible influence.

Key Takeaways

• The major types of research on social problems include surveys, experiments, observational studies, and the use of existing data.
• Surveys are the most common method, and the results of surveys of random samples may be generalized to the populations from which the samples come.
• Observation studies and existing data are also common methods in social problems research. Observation studies enable the gathering of rich, detailed information, but their results cannot necessarily be generalized beyond the people studied.
• Research on social problems should follow the scientific method to yield the most accurate and objective conclusions possible.

For Your Review

• Have you ever been a respondent or subject in any type of sociological or psychological research project? If so, how did it feel to be studied?
• Which type of social problems research method sounds most interesting to you? Why?

Liebow, E. (1967). Tally’s corner . Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Liebow, E. (1993). Tell them who I am: The lives of homeless women . New York, NY: Free Press.

Sherman, L. W., & Berk, R. A. (1984). The specific deterrent effects of arrest for domestic assault. American Sociological Review, 49 , 261–272.

Sherman, L. W. (1992). Policing domestic violence: Experiments and dilemmas . New York, NY: Free Press.

Whyte, W. F. (1943). Street corner society: The social structure of an Italian slum . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Social Problems Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Social Problems: A Case Study Approach

Author(s): Susan Cruise , Edward Clayton Polson , Norman Dolch , Neller Ree Wells-Lewis , Gwendolyn Dordick

Copyright: 2023

Choose Your Format

Choose your platform | help me choose.

ISBN 9798765744789

Details Print Product

ISBN 9798765784648

Details Electronic Delivery EBOOK 180 days

• Table of Contents

Social Problems: A Case Study Approach helps students identify with the social problem at hand through a case study at the start of each chapter. The case study provides a common reference point for discussions and questions and helps students relate to the experiences presented.

Social Problems: A Case Study Approach :

• features technology boxes which present thoughtful challenges related to the social problem under consideration.
• provides a great deal of social science knowledge on the problems.
• addresses the interventions for the problems based on the research.
• provides students with clarity, precision, depth, breadth, accuracy and social relevance -- critical thinking standards -- in a very understandable and applied manner.

Gwendolyn Dordick, PhD is a Doctoral Lecturer at the City College of New York, (CUNY) where she offers courses in urban sociology and urban homelessness and social policy in the U.S. Her book, Something Left to Lose: Personal Relations and Survival among New York's Homeless, concerns the efforts made by four groups of homeless people in New York City to construct shelter in places where it was not meant to be and is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork. Her research also explores the economics of panhandling and the development of policies addressing panhandling. She is currently working with the City of Utica, NY to develop policies to alleviate homelessness. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, and BA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dolch et al continue to bring modern social problems to life through the latest edition of their textbook Social Problems: A Case Study Approach. Their presentation of complex sociological topics using autobiographical and biographical case studies effectively brings a human dimension to the page, helping students apply theoretical ideas and concepts to problem-solve issues experienced in the lives of real people. Critical thinking is encouraged throughout the text via accessible discussion boxes within the chapters, which educators will find excellent topics for classroom discussion. Each chapter is clearly summarized to facilitate further review of its important ideas. Students will find the material interesting, clearly presented, and infused with the wisdom of the seasoned practitioners who authored this text.  - Laura S. Meiki, Ph.D., Instructor of Sociology,   Louisiana State University Shreveport

Social Problems: A Case Study Approach, uses an engaging style to gain student interest into the major social problems facing America today. Each substantive area is covered by experts in that specific field. This provides the students of social problems with the most enlightened examination of the issues. The writing is accessible and geared to current students. This allows them to appreciate and understand the topics of concern such as health care where students are led to thoughtfully consider the social and medical factors that have influenced our health care system over time and to contemplate potential interventions for addressing problems in the future. Using an engaging approach by experts in the various fields and featuring new technologies and their role in social problems makes this text stand out among its competitors.  - Dale E. Yeatts, Professor,   University of North Texas

TABLE OF CONTENTS

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essays Samples >
• Essay Types >
• Case Study Example

Social Issues Case Studies Samples For Students

627 samples of this type

Regardless of how high you rate your writing abilities, it's always a good idea to check out an expertly written Case Study example, especially when you're dealing with a sophisticated Social Issues topic. This is precisely the case when WowEssays.com collection of sample Case Studies on Social Issues will come in handy. Whether you need to come up with a fresh and meaningful Social Issues Case Study topic or inspect the paper's structure or formatting peculiarities, our samples will provide you with the necessary material.

Another activity area of our write my paper service is providing practical writing support to students working on Social Issues Case Studies. Research help, editing, proofreading, formatting, plagiarism check, or even crafting fully original model Social Issues papers upon your request – we can do that all! Place an order and buy a research paper now.

Free Case Study On Identification of Crimes and Defenses

Identification of crimes and defenses, free case study on information lifecycle security risk, health economies in north carolina case study, steps for investigating a childhood disease.

Don't waste your time searching for a sample.

Get your case study done by professional writers!

Just from $10/page

Example Of Case Study On Should Abortion Be Legalized

Good example of case study on parole board decision, example of toronto struggles with unemployment despite the boom in jobs: report case study, free problems case study sample, virtual city police department. case study, good example of united states of america vs john orr leonard case study, elements of the crime.

Orr was arrested over an arson charge at a place called Atascadero. In order for the prosecution to prove that he was the person responsible for the crime, the following elements were identified. In this case, the prosecution provided both the Actus Reus and the Mens Rea element in their bid to charge Mr. Orr for the offense. On the Actus Reus section, the following factors were associated with the arson that Mr. Orr was under accusation. The factors included the physical manifestations that placed him on a probability scale of being the mastermind in setting the place ablaze.

Good The Quest For Prosperity Case Study Example

Introduction, free case study about forecasting future trends in digital crime and digital, mens rea case study samples, good example of case study on relevant facts.

Richard John BAKER and Another v. Gerald R. NELSON

Sample Case Study On Social Entrepreneurship

Complexity and overwhelming nature of issues to be coped with in some countries of the world calls forth the need to add extra dimensions to state’s combating the issues in terms of implementing its functions, and change existing systems and institutions. Social entrepreneurship represents a process by which citizens can either create or transform institutions to advance solutions to such issues, as poverty, illnesses, environment pollution, corruption and human rights abuses (Bornstein&Davis 1-2).

The Future Of Digital Crime And Terrorism Case Study Sample

Introduction:.

According to a brief analysis, the rising issues of digital crime and digital terrorism requires training of law enforcement workers. In current situation, the law enforcement is not talented enough to handle the cases of digital crime and terrorism. There is no doubt in the fact that world is getting digitized every coming day so the knowledge of this world is mandatory in order to solve its issues. Following are eight forecasts which have been formulated after collecting data and analysis in many different situations.

Forecast 1:

Type of action case study examples.

A civil suit brought for violation of Title VII of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and constructive discharge in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

Facts of the Case:

Case study on this is a four out of six optional questions essays paper. totally 10 pages, each, case study on diagnosis and treatment planning, example of case study on demarketing soda in nyc, good example of aging workforce case study, quench case study, assuming that legal authority was not an issue, should vpd personnel or a multijurisdictional case study, good example of education case study.

Love Etc is a love documentary that follows the love and sex lives of a set of couples living in New York City. The documentary is aimed at accessing experiences of the couples and individuals in the different levels of the love cycle of meeting up, dating/courting, marrying, divorce and starting over. To achieve a meaningful assessment the directors of the documentary choose individuals from diverse occupational, racial backgrounds, on different stages of the love cycle.

Relationship status

Example of siemens: just breaking the eleventh commandment case study, good example of criminal act case study, free poverty in america case study example, free case study on criminal law, case study on the poor in brazil, good example of obstetrics case study, good case study on responding to rape cases in england and wales, responding to rape cases in england and wales, free case study on terrorism related hazards, criminal law case study samples, good analyzing a statistical study case study example, multilevel study finds no link between minimum wage and crime rates. article by dawn fuller, good forecasting future trends in digital crime case study example, case study on summarizing concepts, good example of project title case study.

H.R. 1412, the Justice and Integrity Act of 2009

H.R. 1412, the Justice and Integrity Act of 2009 A Report from Rep. Steve Cohen (d-tenn.), Discussing Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System That He Can Use To Move This Bill Forward in Congress

Women In Palestine Case Study Samples

Free case study on current case review, sample case study on microsoft, good virtual county police department case study example, good example of chatsworth sports products case study, jeffrey dahmer case study samples.

The topic of the paper is murder, and its mission is to discuss the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer and relating this crime with the three categories of crime causation. Murder is the deliberate taking of another person life. Murder can be first-degree and second-degree murder where in the first degree both the intention and the killing is planned (Brown et al, 2010). This paper will also discuss how Jeffery Dahmer killed people deliberately out of ill will.

Sample Case Study On Recommendations

Abstract Companies have come to realize that Human Resource is key element to remaining competitive in the global advance and market towards their goals. Human Resource in Coca Cola Company is facing challenges of fighting racial discrimination in United States. . The issues that Coca-Cola is facing in relation to human resource are critical and more so threaten its survival. The paper discusses racial discrimination in the Coca-Cola Company. The paper analyzes the case study of Coca-Cola Company that dwells on racial discrimination. The recommendations to the problem are also highlighted at the end of the paper.

Free Case Study On Bill Of Rights

Town residents and residents in nearby towns case study examples, executive summary, free white paper on american employment- related laws and regulations case study sample, free don't ask, don't tell case study sample, example of public administration case study, free case study on criminal procedure, lewis v. united states, research questions: employee welfare case study examples, case study on habeas petition, free case study on charles dickens time, example of case study on kansas city preventative patrol experiment, what is the study about, risk stratification case study sample, the risk stratification of an individual basically takes the following three factors into account:, charles dickens time case study, example of case study on toms shoes corporate social responsibility, case study on review and critic someone else work, essay one peer review and critique, example of case study on focus on juvenile justice, focus of juvenile justice, discussions case study examples, incarceration rate case study examples.

Why the U.S. Has the Highest Incarceration Rate in the Western World

Rape Accused In Malaysia Defends Marriage To 13-Year-Old Case Study Examples

Rape case in malaysia.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

• Introduction
• Conclusions
• Article Information

The dashed lines represent potential confounding. The solid line represents the main association of interest. BMI indicates body mass index.

Error bars indicate 95% CIs.

eFigure. Participant selection from the complete PATH sample into the analytic sample.

eTable 1. Items from the GAIN-SS scale used to assess internalizing and externalizing problems.

eTable 2. Unadjusted and adjusted relative risk ratios for each category of social media use in relation to internalizing and externalizing problems among U.S. youth in the PATH Study, 2013-2016, after multiple imputation with chained equations (n=7,234).

eMethods. Calculating population attributable fractions from adjusted models.

• Social Media and the Youth Mental Health Crisis JAMA Medical News & Perspectives July 3, 2023 This Medical News article discusses potential harms and benefits of social media use and what primary care physicians can do to protect children and adolescents and support families. Jennifer Abbasi
• US Surgeon General Calls for Social Media Warning Labels JAMA Medical News & Perspectives August 9, 2024 This Medical News article is an interview with US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, and JAMA Editor in Chief Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, PhD, MD, MAS, about his call for a warning label on social media platforms. Jennifer Abbasi; Yulin Hswen, ScD, MPH
• Is There an Association Between Social Media Use and Mental Health? The Timing of Confounding Measurement Matters JAMA Psychiatry Comment & Response April 1, 2020 Katherine M. Keyes, PhD; Noah Kreski, MPH
• Is There an Association Between Social Media Use and Mental Health? The Timing of Confounding Measurement Matters—Reply JAMA Psychiatry Comment & Response April 1, 2020 Kenneth A. Feder, PhD; Kira E. Riehm, MSc; Ramin Mojtabai, MD

See More About

Select your interests.

Customize your JAMA Network experience by selecting one or more topics from the list below.

• Academic Medicine
• Acid Base, Electrolytes, Fluids
• Allergy and Clinical Immunology
• American Indian or Alaska Natives
• Anesthesiology
• Anticoagulation
• Art and Images in Psychiatry
• Artificial Intelligence
• Assisted Reproduction
• Bleeding and Transfusion
• Caring for the Critically Ill Patient
• Challenges in Clinical Electrocardiography
• Climate and Health
• Climate Change
• Clinical Challenge
• Clinical Decision Support
• Clinical Implications of Basic Neuroscience
• Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Consensus Statements
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Critical Care Medicine
• Cultural Competency
• Dental Medicine
• Dermatology
• Diabetes and Endocrinology
• Diagnostic Test Interpretation
• Drug Development
• Electronic Health Records
• Emergency Medicine
• End of Life, Hospice, Palliative Care
• Environmental Health
• Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
• Facial Plastic Surgery
• Gastroenterology and Hepatology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Genomics and Precision Health
• Global Health
• Guide to Statistics and Methods
• Hair Disorders
• Health Care Delivery Models
• Health Care Economics, Insurance, Payment
• Health Care Quality
• Health Care Reform
• Health Care Safety
• Health Care Workforce
• Health Disparities
• Health Inequities
• Health Policy
• Health Systems Science
• History of Medicine
• Hypertension
• Images in Neurology
• Implementation Science
• Infectious Diseases
• Innovations in Health Care Delivery
• JAMA Infographic
• Law and Medicine
• Leading Change
• Less is More
• LGBTQIA Medicine
• Lifestyle Behaviors
• Medical Coding
• Medical Devices and Equipment
• Medical Education
• Medical Education and Training
• Medical Journals and Publishing
• Mobile Health and Telemedicine
• Narrative Medicine
• Neuroscience and Psychiatry
• Notable Notes
• Nutrition, Obesity, Exercise
• Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Occupational Health
• Ophthalmology
• Orthopedics
• Otolaryngology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Care
• Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
• Patient Care
• Patient Information
• Performance Improvement
• Performance Measures
• Perioperative Care and Consultation
• Pharmacoeconomics
• Pharmacoepidemiology
• Pharmacogenetics
• Pharmacy and Clinical Pharmacology
• Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
• Physical Therapy
• Physician Leadership
• Population Health
• Primary Care
• Professional Well-being
• Professionalism
• Psychiatry and Behavioral Health
• Public Health
• Pulmonary Medicine
• Regulatory Agencies
• Reproductive Health
• Research, Methods, Statistics
• Resuscitation
• Rheumatology
• Risk Management
• Scientific Discovery and the Future of Medicine
• Shared Decision Making and Communication
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports Medicine
• Stem Cell Transplantation
• Substance Use and Addiction Medicine
• Surgical Innovation
• Surgical Pearls
• Teachable Moment
• Technology and Finance
• The Art of JAMA
• The Arts and Medicine
• The Rational Clinical Examination
• Tobacco and e-Cigarettes
• Translational Medicine
• Trauma and Injury
• Treatment Adherence
• Ultrasonography
• Users' Guide to the Medical Literature
• Vaccination
• Venous Thromboembolism
• Veterans Health
• Women's Health
• Workflow and Process
• Wound Care, Infection, Healing

Others Also Liked

• Download PDF
• X Facebook More LinkedIn

Riehm KE , Feder KA , Tormohlen KN, et al. Associations Between Time Spent Using Social Media and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems Among US Youth. JAMA Psychiatry. 2019;76(12):1266–1273. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.2325

Manage citations:

© 2024

• Permissions

Associations Between Time Spent Using Social Media and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems Among US Youth

• 1 Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
• 2 Department of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
• 3 Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
• 4 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
• 5 Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
• 6 Department of Behavioral and Community Health, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park
• 7 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina
• 8 Washington State Department of Health, Olympia
• Medical News & Perspectives Social Media and the Youth Mental Health Crisis Jennifer Abbasi JAMA
• Medical News & Perspectives US Surgeon General Calls for Social Media Warning Labels Jennifer Abbasi; Yulin Hswen, ScD, MPH JAMA
• Comment & Response Is There an Association Between Social Media Use and Mental Health? The Timing of Confounding Measurement Matters Katherine M. Keyes, PhD; Noah Kreski, MPH JAMA Psychiatry
• Comment & Response Is There an Association Between Social Media Use and Mental Health? The Timing of Confounding Measurement Matters—Reply Kenneth A. Feder, PhD; Kira E. Riehm, MSc; Ramin Mojtabai, MD JAMA Psychiatry

Question   Is time spent using social media associated with mental health problems among adolescents?

Findings   In this cohort study of 6595 US adolescents, increased time spent using social media per day was prospectively associated with increased odds of reporting high levels of internalizing and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems, even after adjusting for history of mental health problems.

Meaning   Adolescents who spend more than 3 hours per day on social media may be at heightened risk for mental health problems, particularly internalizing problems.

Importance   Social media use may be a risk factor for mental health problems in adolescents. However, few longitudinal studies have investigated this association, and none have quantified the proportion of mental health problems among adolescents attributable to social media use.

Objective   To assess whether time spent using social media per day is prospectively associated with internalizing and externalizing problems among adolescents.

Design, Setting, and Participants   This longitudinal cohort study of 6595 participants from waves 1 (September 12, 2013, to December 14, 2014), 2 (October 23, 2014, to October 30, 2015), and 3 (October 18, 2015, to October 23, 2016) of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study, a nationally representative cohort study of US adolescents, assessed US adolescents via household interviews using audio computer-assisted self-interviewing. Data analysis was performed from January 14, 2019, to May 22, 2019.

Exposures   Self-reported time spent on social media during a typical day (none, ≤30 minutes, >30 minutes to ≤3 hours, >3 hours to ≤6 hours, and >6 hours) during wave 2.

Main Outcomes and Measure   Self-reported past-year internalizing problems alone, externalizing problems alone, and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems during wave 3 using the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs–Short Screener.

Results   A total of 6595 adolescents (aged 12-15 years during wave 1; 3400 [51.3%] male) were studied. In unadjusted analyses, spending more than 30 minutes of time on social media, compared with no use, was associated with increased risk of internalizing problems alone (≤30 minutes: relative risk ratio [RRR], 1.30; 95% CI, 0.94-1.78; >30 minutes to ≤3 hours: RRR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.36-2.64; >3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 2.47; 95% CI, 1.74-3.49; >6 hours: RRR, 2.83; 95% CI, 1.88-4.26) and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems (≤30 minutes: RRR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.06-1.82; >30 minutes to ≤3 hours: RRR, 2.34; 95% CI, 1.83-3.00; >3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 3.15; 95% CI, 2.43-4.09; >6 hours: RRR, 4.29; 95% CI, 3.22-5.73); associations with externalizing problems were inconsistent. In adjusted analyses, use of social media for more than 3 hours per day compared with no use remained significantly associated with internalizing problems alone (>3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.11-2.31; >6 hours: RRR, 1.78; 95% CI, 1.15-2.77) and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems (>3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 2.01; 95% CI, 1.51-2.66; >6 hours: RRR, 2.44; 95% CI, 1.73-3.43) but not externalizing problems alone.

Conclusions and Relevance   Adolescents who spend more than 3 hours per day using social media may be at heightened risk for mental health problems, particularly internalizing problems. Future research should determine whether setting limits on daily social media use, increasing media literacy, and redesigning social media platforms are effective means of reducing the burden of mental health problems in this population.

For adolescents in the United States, social media use is ubiquitous. A 2018 Pew Research Center poll found that 97% of adolescents report using at least 1 of the 7 most popular social media platforms (YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit). Moreover, digital media use by adolescents is common: 95% report owning or having access to a smartphone, and almost 90% report they are online at least several times a day. 1

Social media offers numerous potential benefits to users, including exposure to current events, interpersonal connection, and enhancement of social support networks. 2 However, concerns are increasingly raised about potential harms of social media use. 2 One-quarter of adolescents think social media has a mostly negative influence on people their age, pointing to reasons like rumor spreading, lack of in-person contact, unrealistic views of others’ lives, peer pressure, and mental health issues. 1

An increasing body of literature suggests that social media use is associated with mental health problems in adolescence. Numerous cross-sectional studies and a limited number of longitudinal studies suggest that high levels of social media use are associated with internalizing problems, including depressive and anxiety symptoms, 3 - 6 although results are not entirely consistent. 7 Some studies also suggest an association between social media use and externalizing problems, such as bullying and attention problems. 8 , 9 Furthermore, a previous study 4 produced mixed results regarding the possible moderating effect of sex.

The prevalence of major depressive disorder and depressive symptoms has increased among adolescents in the United States, 10 , 11 and adolescent suicide death and attempt rates have increased sharply during the past 2 decades. 12 , 13 Some authors 14 have postulated that increases in depression may be attributable to rapid increases in social media use. However, evidence of this association in nationally representative samples is scarce, and little is known about whether reducing time spent on social media might influence the prevalence of mental health problems at a national level.

In this article, we build on existing literature by examining the prospective association of time spent on social media with internalizing and externalizing problems in a representative sample of US adolescents. We used data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, which is a nationally representative, longitudinal cohort of adolescents. 15 Unlike a prior study, 16 we adjusted for mental health problems measured before the exposure, which is critical for reducing the influence of reverse causality. We hypothesized that greater time spent on social media would prospectively be associated with internalizing and externalizing problems alone, as well as comorbid problems at 1-year follow-up. On the basis of past research, 5 we also examined whether these associations differed between males and females.

In this longitudinal cohort study, participants were drawn from the public-use data files of waves 1 (September 12, 2013, to December 14, 2014), 2 (October 23, 2014, to October 30, 2015), and 3 (October 18, 2015, to October 23, 2016) of the PATH study. 15 The methods of the PATH study have been previously described. 15 In brief, the target population for this survey was the civilian household population in the United States. Data were collected in 1-year intervals, starting with wave 1 from September 12, 2013, to December 14, 2014. Multistage-stratified sampling was used to obtain a sample of households from which up to 2 individuals aged 12 to 17 years were randomly selected to be interviewed. Data analysis was performed from January 14, 2019, to May 22, 2019. After oral parent permission and adolescent assent were obtained, adolescents were interviewed using audio computer-assisted self-interviewing. The current analyses were considered exempt from human subjects research according to Johns Hopkins institutional review board policy because the data were publicly available and deidentified.

The weighted response rate for adolescents during wave 1 was 78.4%, and the weighted retention rate during wave 3 was 83.3%. 17 A total of 7595 adolescents (aged 12-15 years during wave 1, aged 13-16 years during wave 2, and aged 14-17 years during wave 3) completed all 3 PATH survey waves. Of these, 1000 adolescents (13.2%) were excluded because they were missing data on at least 1 variable required for this analysis; the remaining 6595 adolescents comprised the analytic sample (eFigure in the Supplement ).

Past-year mental health problems, the outcome of interest, were assessed during wave 3 using the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs–Short Screener (GAIN-SS). 18 The GAIN-SS is a screening measure intended to identify a probable mental health disorder and assess symptom severity; it has been validated in adolescents 19 and includes internalizing and externalizing subscales (eTable 1 in the Supplement ). Each item measures 1 symptom; for this study, symptoms were considered to be present if the respondent selected in the past month or 2 to 12 months from the response options that indicated the last time they had experienced that symptom. Symptom counts were generated for each subscale. Adolescents were classified as reporting low to moderate (0-3 symptoms) or high (≥4 symptoms) internalizing and externalizing problems. These cut points have been validated for use when making treatment decisions 18 and have previously been used with the PATH sample. 20 , 21 We combined these subscales to create a single outcome variable with 4 mutually exclusive categories: no or low internalizing and externalizing problems, internalizing problems alone, externalizing problems alone, and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems. Comorbid problems were defined as having all 4 internalizing and 4 or more externalizing symptoms.

The exposure of interest was time spent using social media per day during wave 2. Adolescents who reported that they ever went online were asked, “Sometimes people use the internet to connect with other people online through social networks like Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube, MySpace, Linkedin, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, or Snapchat. This is often called ‘social media.’ Do you have a social media account?” Adolescents who reported that they had a social media account that they visited were asked, “On a typical day, about how much total time do you spend on social media sites?” The response options were up to 30 minutes; more than 30 minutes, up to 3 hours; more than 3 hours, up to 6 hours; and more than 6 hours. We retained these categories for our exposure variable, with an additional category of none for adolescents who reported not going online, not having a social media account, or never visiting their social media account.

Potential confounders, including demographic characteristics (ie, sex, age, race, and parental educational level), body mass index (based on parent-reported weight and height), self-reported lifetime marijuana use and alcohol use, and scale scores for lifetime internalizing and externalizing problems, were adjusted for in the analyses. To ensure that we did not improperly adjust for mediating variables, 22 we used covariates measured at wave 1 instead of wave 2. The full study design is displayed in Figure 1 .

Multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the associations between time spent on social media per day with internalizing problems alone, externalizing problems alone, and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems (reference group: no or low internalizing and externalizing problems). Both unadjusted and adjusted analyses were conducted. Regression coefficients were exponentiated for interpretation as relative risk ratios (RRRs). In addition, we used the adjusted model to generate and plot predicted probabilities of high internalizing and externalizing problems for each level of social media use for an otherwise average study participant.

We tested for the presence of a linear trend in the coefficients for social media use in their relation to each category of mental health problems by converting the social media use variable to an ordinal variable and reestimating the adjusted model (ie, a Mantel test for trend 23 ). A linear trend would suggest that more time spent on social media is associated with a proportionally greater likelihood of reporting mental health problems.

We tested whether any observed association of social media use with mental health problems differed between males and females by testing an interaction term between social media use and sex in our adjusted model.

In addition, we estimated the respective proportions of high internalizing and high externalizing problem cases that would be potentially prevented if adolescents spent less time using social media (ie, the population-attributable fraction [PAF] for social media use). We did this for 4 counterfactual scenarios that represented increasingly greater population reductions in social media use. In scenario 1, adolescents who actually used social media more than 6 hours per day would instead use social media more than 3 hours to 6 hours or less per day; in scenario 2, adolescents who actually used social media more than 3 hours per day would instead use social media more than 30 minutes to 3 hours or less per day; in scenario 3, adolescents who actually used social media more than 30 minutes per day would instead use social media 30 minutes or less per day; and in scenario 4, adolescents who actually spent any amount of time on social media per day would instead not spend any time on social media.

We estimated each scenario by generating a counterfactual population from our adjusted model using the approach to calculate PAFs described by Greenland and Drescher 24 and Rückinger et al. 25 See the eMethods in the Supplement for a detailed description.

To test whether our results were sensitive to missing data, we repeated analyses using multiply imputed data. We performed multiple imputation using chained equations and recomputed the unadjusted, adjusted, and sex-interaction models. We stratified by sex and generated 10 imputed data sets to account for the hypothesized interaction between sex and social media use. 26

Data for analyses were weighted to be representative of 12- to 15-year-old adolescents living in the United States in 2013 to 2014. Standard errors were estimated using the wave 3 all-waves replicate weights constructed using balanced repeated replication (the Fay method) provided in the PATH data set. Statistical significance was assessed at a 2-sided P  < .05 level. All analyses were conducted using Stata, version 14 (StataCorp).

A total of 6595 adolescents (aged 12-15 years during wave 1; 3400 [51.3%] male) were included in the analysis. During wave 3, of the sample of 6595 adolescents, 611 (9.1%) reported internalizing problems alone, 885 (14.0%) reported externalizing problems alone, 1169 (17.7%) reported comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems, and the remaining 3930 (59.3%) reported no or low problems. During wave 2, a total of 1125 adolescents (16.8%) reported no social media use, 2082 (31.8%) reported 30 minutes or less, 2000 (30.7%) reported more than 30 minutes to 3 hours or more, 817 (12.3%) reported more than 3 hours to 6 hours or less, and 571 (8.4%) reported more than 6 hours of use per day. Sample characteristics are given in Table 1 .

Compared with adolescents who did not use social media, the use of social media for more than 30 minutes per day was associated with greater risk of internalizing problems alone (≤30 minutes: RRR, 1.30; 95% CI, 0.94-1.78; >30 minutes to ≤3 hours: RRR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.36-2.64; >3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 2.47; 95% CI, 1.74-3.49; >6 hours: RRR, 2.83; 95% CI, 1.88-4.26) and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems (≤30 minutes: RRR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.06-1.82; >30 minutes to ≤3 hours: RRR, 2.34; 95% CI, 1.83-3.00; >3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 3.15; 95% CI, 2.43-4.09; >6 hours: RRR, 4.29; 95% CI, 3.22-5.73) ( Table 2 ). In the adjusted model, the associations for the 2 highest categories of social media use persisted for internalizing problems alone (>3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.11-2.31; >6 hours: RRR, 1.78; 95% CI, 1.15-2.77), and the associations for the 3 highest categories of social media use persisted for comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems (>30 minutes to ≤3 hours: RRR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.23-2.05; >3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 2.01; 95% CI, 1.51-2.66; >6 hours: RRR, 2.44; 95% CI, 1.73-3.43). In contrast, in unadjusted analyses, the association of social media use with externalizing problems was inconsistent (≤30 minutes: RRR, 1.28; 95% CI, 0.98-1.67; >30 minutes to ≤3 hours: RRR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.16-2.21; >3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 1.36; 95% CI, 0.97-1.90; >6 hours: RRR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.07-2.37) and not significant in the adjusted analysis (≤30 minutes: RRR, 1.18; 95% CI, 0.89-1.56; >30 minutes to ≤3 hours: RRR, 1.37; 95% CI, 0.98-1.92; >3 to ≤6 hours: RRR, 1.22; 95% CI, 0.86-1.72; >6 hours: RRR, 1.40; 95% CI, 0.90-2.19) ( Table 2 ). The predicted probabilities of high internalizing, externalizing, and comorbid problems for each level of social media use, with all other covariates set to their mean, are displayed in Figure 2 .

We observed a significant linear trend in the coefficients for both internalizing ( F 1,99  = 8.86, P  = .004) and comorbid problems ( F 1,99  = 35.16, P  < .001); as time on social media increased, the odds of these outcomes increased proportionately. In contrast, we observed no association for externalizing problems ( F 1,99  = 2.25, P  = .14).

We observed no statistically significant interaction between social media use and sex for internalizing ( F 4,96  = 0.84, P  = .50), externalizing ( F 4,96  = 0.32, P  = .86), or comorbid problems ( F 4,96  = 0.73, P  = .57).

All PAF estimates are given in Table 3 . On the basis of our adjusted model assuming no confounding, 0.8% to 18.9% of internalizing problems and 0.8% to 15.3% of externalizing problems could be prevented if participants had instead used less social media.

Results of analyses using multiple imputation methods did not differ appreciably from the main analyses (eTable 2 in the Supplement ).

Consistent with a prior study, 4 we found that adolescent social media use was prospectively associated with increased risk of comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems as well as internalizing problems alone. This association remained significant after adjusting for demographics, past alcohol and marijuana use, and, most importantly, a history of mental health problems, which mitigates the possibility that reverse causality explains these findings. In contrast, we did not find an association of social media use with externalizing problems alone. This finding suggests that the association of social media use with comorbid problems occurs primarily because of the association of social media with internalizing problems and the high comorbidity of internalizing and externalizing problems. Unlike a prior study, 4 we found no evidence of moderation by sex, perhaps because of the simplicity of our social media use variable, which could not capture the nature of interactions on social media that may differ by sex.

Numerous mechanisms could account for the association between social media use and internalizing problems. Adolescents who engage in high levels of social media use may experience poorer quality sleep, which may be a mediator on the pathway to internalizing problems. 27 Time spent on social media may increase the risk of experiencing cyberbullying, which has a strong association with depressive symptoms. 28 Social media may also expose adolescents to idealized self-presentations that negatively influence body image and encourage social comparisons. 4 Poor emotion regulation and lack of social interaction may also be associated with social media use and contribute to symptoms of anxiety and depression. 29

These mechanisms are potentially consistent with the notion that spending less time on social media may contribute to mental health. In fact, the PAFs obtained in our study suggest that if adolescents using social media for more than 30 minutes per day had instead used it for 30 minutes or less, there would have been 9.4% fewer high internalizing problem cases and 7.3% fewer high externalizing problem cases. Of importance, this is not meant to imply that reductions in mental health problems would definitively happen if social media use were reduced or that all social media use is harmful. Instead, these PAFs suggest the potential influence of our findings on the population at a national level assuming a causal effect of social media use and no confounding—both strong assumptions. Future research could improve on our PAF estimates by using data from randomized clinical trials (RCTs).

Our findings must be balanced with the potential benefits of social media use, which include exposure to current events, communication over geographic barriers, and social inclusion for those who may be otherwise excluded in their day-to-day lives (eg, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth). 2 A limitation of our study is that we measured overall time spent on social media; prior studies 30 - 32 have found that social media use may be positively or negatively associated with mental health depending on which platforms are used and how. Nevertheless, a number of interventions could lead to a reduction in time spent on social media by adolescents, while still allowing for the benefits of such use. The American Academy of Pediatrics has developed a Family Media Use Plan, which can be tailored to specific developmental phases and help parents set reasonable rules for digital media use. 2 Pediatricians and teachers are essential for promoting these plans, as well as helping parents identify problematic social media use in their children. 33 There is also evidence that interventions that promote media literacy, defined as “specific knowledge and skills that can help critical understanding and usage of the media,” 34 (p 455) counteract the harmful association of media use with behavioral health. 34 Also, there is an increasing movement to improve the design of social media platforms; a notable recent example is not displaying the number of “likes” that an Instagram post receives. 35 We believe that technology companies and regulators responsible for social media platforms should consider how these platforms can be designed to minimize risk of mental health problems.

Some researchers have raised concerns that studies on technology use and well-being are limited by publication bias. 36 We believe that this is a legitimate concern given that many studies on this topic, including the present study, are secondary analyses of data not collected for the purpose of studying social media. 36 There appears to be an urgent need for experimental research, specifically a priori registered RCTs that examine interventions designed to reduce social media use. Our study findings suggest a population-level association between social media use and mental health problems, and evidence from RCTs could build on this by examining changes in mental health as a result of changes in social media use. The existing observational study findings and at least 1 RCT in college students 37 appear to be sufficient to justify investment in these trials. In addition, RCTs may be valuable for developing clinical guidelines and informing regulatory policy for social media design.

Some limitations of this study should be noted. First, adolescents self-reported the exposure and outcome, which may inflate the observed associations. Second, we measured mental health problems with a self-report questionnaire rather than a diagnostic interview. Third, the validity of self-reported time spent on social media in the PATH study is unknown. Some research suggests that self-reported time on social media may exceed actual use 38 ; future studies should consider the use of digital trace data to capture actual time spent using social media. 39 Fourth, social media use continues to change rapidly over time; although our data were collected relatively recently, they may not reflect current trends. Fifth, although our study design mitigates the possibility of reverse causality, some residual confounding from imprecise measurement of prior mental health problems may have been present. Sixth, it remains possible that mental health problems are prospectively associated with social media use, but we could not examine this in the present study because of data limitations. Seventh, it is possible that the observed associations were an artifact of unmeasured confounding. Although we controlled for a number of potential confounders, there may be others, such as physical activity, that we were unable to include because of data limitations.

This study suggests that increased time spent on social media may be a risk factor for internalizing problems in adolescents. Future research should determine whether setting limits on daily social media use, increasing media literacy, and redesigning social media platforms are effective means of reducing the burden of mental health problems in this population.

Accepted for Publication: June 14, 2019.

Corresponding Author: Kira E. Riehm, MS, Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 624 N Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205 ( [email protected] ).

Published Online: September 11, 2019. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.2325

Author Contributions: Ms Riehm had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: Riehm, Feder, Crum, Green, La Flair, Mojtabai.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Riehm, Feder, Tormohlen, Young, Green, Pacek, La Flair.

Drafting of the manuscript: Riehm, Feder, Pacek.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: All authors.

Statistical analysis: Riehm, Feder, Green, Pacek.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Green.

Supervision: Crum, Green, Mojtabai.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Young reported receiving grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation during the conduct of the study, receiving grants from Supernus Pharmaceuticals and Psychnostics LLC outside the submitted work, and receiving personal fees from University of Montana's American Indian/Alaska Native Clinical Translational Program. Dr Pacek reported receiving grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding/Support: Ms Riehm was supported by grant 5T32MH014592-39 from the National Institute of Mental Health Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program (Peter Zandi, principal investigator) and by a doctoral foreign study award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr Feder was supported by National Research and Service Award F31DA044699 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Ms Tormohlen was supported by grant T32DA007292 (Renee M. Johnson, principal investigator), Dr Young was supported by grant K23DA044288, and Dr Pacek was supported by grant K01DA043413 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funding sources had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

• Register for email alerts with links to free full-text articles
• Access PDFs of free articles
• Manage your interests
• Save searches and receive search alerts

• Search Menu
• Sign in through your institution
• Advance articles
• Editor's Choice
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• Why Submit?
• About Social Politics
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Introduction, the battle over intersectionality, constitutive controversies, methodology, constructing the feminist sector as intersectionality’s pathfinder, white feminism and trans rights, conclusions, acknowledgments.

• < Previous

“Diversity Within”: The Problems with “Intersectional” White Feminism in Practice

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Ashlee Christoffersen, Akwugo Emejulu, “Diversity Within”: The Problems with “Intersectional” White Feminism in Practice, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society , Volume 30, Issue 2, Summer 2023, Pages 630–653, https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxac044

• Permissions Icon Permissions

In intersectionality studies, debates about the additive versus constitutive nature of intersectionality are long-established. This article attempts to intervene in these conversations by examining how additive, “diversity within” intersectionality works in practice. Across feminist academia, advocacy, and policymaking, there is a widely held perception that among the nongovernmental organizations constituted around identity-based inequalities (feminist, racial justice, migrants, disability, and LGBTQI+ rights), it is the feminist sector that best advocates for and attempts to practice intersectionality. This is related to the appropriation of Black feminist theories of intersectionality which emerged from grassroots activism and Critical Race scholarship as “feminist” theory, wherein feminist is always-already constructed as white. Drawing on empirical research with equality organizations working with disabled women and trans women in England and Scotland, this article suggests that the opposite is true: the additive intersectionality practiced by the white-led feminist sector serves to uphold white supremacy and other structural inequalities.

Intersectionality is the term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw for Black women’s theorizing of the social world’s foundational organizing logics of white supremacy—a global, social, political, economic, and cultural system which privileges whiteness, gendered racism, and racialized sexism ( Collins 1990 ; Crenshaw 1989 , 1991 ). Although most often associated with Black American feminist theory, intersectionality has a long tradition in Black British feminism ( Amos et al. 1984 ; Bryan, Dadzie, and Scafe 2018 ; Mirza 1997 ) and Afropean feminism ( Emejulu and Sobande 2019 ; Florvil 2020 ; Optiz, Oguntoye, and Schultz 1991 ; Wekker 2016 ). Intersectionality is the understanding that social inequalities are interdependent and indivisible from one another: “race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but rather as reciprocally constructing phenomena” ( Collins 2015 , 2).

Crenshaw employs intersectionality to describe the ways that Black women’s experiences and identities are marginalized by practices that treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories not only in anti-discrimination law but also in feminist and anti-racist movements. As the classic essay collection edited by Hull, Bell-Scott, and Smith (2015  [1980]) succinctly put it, “All the women are white, all the Blacks are men—but some of us are brave.” When race and gender are conceptualized as separate and independent from each other there is a tendency for the most powerful members of marginalized groups, in this case, white women and Black men—to universalize themselves and their particular experiences and position themselves as the only legitimate representatives of the group as a whole.

There is a long-running debate among intersectionality scholars on what precisely intersectionality is ( Hancock 2007 , 2013 ; Jordan-Zachery 2007 ; Lutz 2015 ; May 2015 ; Collins 2019 ), as well as what it means . If intersectionality is disputed by academics, then what does it mean to those seeking to practice intersectionality in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)? How do definitions among practitioners relate to academic debates? How does what intersectionality is understood to mean relate to how it is applied? Our article examines how additive, what we call “diversity within,” intersectionality works in practice. Although rather unwieldy, we use “diversity within” to foreground how some practitioners in our study described the ways that they applied intersectionality. For these practitioners, addressing “diversity,” a term ubiquitously and often uncritically mobilized in the UK policy context (see Ahmed 2012 ), means acknowledging differences (e.g. of ethnicity, disability) within a predefined social group (i.e. women), and seeking to include those who have been excluded from their organization’s activities and services.

In feminist academia, advocacy, and policymaking, there is often an assumption that among the single-issue NGO sectors organized around identity-based inequalities (disability rights, feminist, LGBTQI+ rights, racial justice, migrants’ rights), it is the feminist sector that is the pathfinder that best advocates for and innovates in its practice of intersectionality (e.g. Evans 2015 , 2016 ; see also Bassel and Emejulu 2017a , 2017b ). Below we provide examples of this assumption being made by senior equality policymakers as well as women’s sector practitioners and directors in both England and Scotland. We argue that this erroneous assumption is the result of the appropriation of Black feminist theories of intersectionality emerging from Critical Race scholarship as “feminist” theory, wherein feminist is always-already constructed as white ( Alexander-Floyd 2012 ; Bilge 2013 ; Emejulu 2022 ; Lewis 2013 ; Tomlinson 2013 ). A majority of research on intersectionality and social movements which centers a particular identity-based sector focuses on white-dominated feminist organizations and movements (e.g. Boucher 2018 ; English 2019 , 2020 ; Evans 2015 , 2016 ; Laperriere and Lépinard 2016 ; Lépinard 2014 ; with exceptions including Tungohan 2015 ; Terriquez et al. 2018 ). This focus reflects intersectionality’s powerful academic appropriation as white “feminist” theory ( Davis 2008 ), particularly in Europe where race is disavowed and intersectionality is often mobilized to strategically erase race, racism, and white supremacy ( Emejulu and van der Scheer 2021 ; Lewis 2013 ). Feminist NGO advocates consider themselves to be the intersectionality experts—and thus legitimate “representatives” of women experiencing intersecting inequalities—a view echoed among gender equality policymakers, as will be evidenced through our empirical data below. Meanwhile among policymakers internationally, when it has been mobilized, intersectionality has been appropriated by “gender mainstreaming” technocrats (see e.g. Christoffersen 2022a on European policy; Hunting and Hankivsky 2020 for a critique; Lombardo and Agustín 2016 ), who engage exclusively with white-dominated feminist NGOs. Based on our research with equality organizations in England and Scotland, this article offers a counter-narrative. Instead, we argue that though the feminist NGO sector claims to be the only one really doing intersectionality, the particular way that intersectionality is being practiced by the single-issue white-led feminist sector serves, far from furthering intersectional justice, to uphold white supremacy and other structural inequalities. This is demonstrated through empirical examples concerning projects targeted toward disabled women, and perceptions and conflicts regarding trans rights. 1 We share these examples because issues of disability and trans rights formed the foci of discussions of intersectionality in the women’s sector—to the exclusion of discussion of racism.

We begin this article by first reviewing some of the key debates within intersectionality studies, particularly in relation to additive and constitutive approaches. We first discuss the additive ways that these practitioners understand how to apply intersectionality, an approach that reinforces white supremacy and other structural inequalities. We then provide examples of how additive approaches work in practice through discussion of organizing around disability and trans rights. Ultimately, diversity within intersectionality is “non-performative” ( Ahmed 2006 ; Nash 2019 ); in other words, it is an empty gesture that reaffirms white supremacy within these organizations. While much attention has been given to how single-issue women’s organizations can become more representative of marginalized women experiencing intersecting inequalities (e.g. Strolovitch 2007 ), we suggest alternative paths forward.

Intersectionality is a contested term ( Collins and Bilge 2016 ; Hancock 2016 ; May 2015 ), and authors have suggested conceiving it as a field of study rather than as simply a theory ( Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall 2013 ; Hancock 2016 ). Yet core to its meaning is that systems of inequality, including capitalism/class, sexism, racism and white supremacy, heterosexism, cisgenderism, ableism, and borders, constitute one another, meaning that they construct one another and interact to create institutions and differential social positions ( Bassel and Emejulu 2010 ; Collins 1990 ; Crenshaw 1989 , 1991 ; May 2015 ; Yuval-Davis 2006 ). Social institutions and positions are therefore shaped by multiple, mutually constituting, divisions operating simultaneously. Applying intersectionality, in both theory and practice, therefore means engagement with the interrelationship of these systems of inequality. This engagement is in turn predicated on acknowledgment of and reckoning with the ontology of each of these structures themselves.

As we and others argue, social divisions and identities cannot be separated from one another because they are mutually constituting, so that, for example, there is little analytical value in discussing “women” generically, but only particular categories of women, wherein gender is constituted by other elements, resulting in a specific inhabiting and experience of gender which is qualitatively different to others ( Collins 1990 ; Crenshaw 1989 , 1991 ). Yet intersectionality emerges from a feminist context where “woman” is always-already constructed as white ( Davis 1983 ; Lewis 2017 ), one where the figure of the Black woman has been discursively and materially degendered through slavery and its afterlife, and in its wake ( Hartman 2008 ; Sharpe 2016 ; Spillers 1987 ). Although not named as such, intersectionality has been a constitutive element of Black women’s politics since the colonial encounter. Understanding how race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and legal status interact in ways that advantage some groups and disadvantage others has formed the basis of Black women’s politics for centuries ( Collins 1990 ; Emejulu 2022 ).

While we see a constitutive definition of intersectionality as integral to it, others advocate additive definitions: a strand of white feminist academic thought employs particular definitions of intersectionality suggesting that inequalities can be separated from one another. This is exemplified by Walby, Armstrong, and Strid (2012a, 2012b ), who seek to arbitrate a new legitimate meaning of intersectionality. As social scientists historically mainly concerned with gender and class, they argue for a conception of the relationship between inequalities as “mutually shaping” rather than mutually constitutive: “which suggests that while the effects of one inequality on other inequalities may be discerned, the separate systems of inequality remain” ( Walby, Armstrong, and Strid 2012a , 453), because “the recognition of the differences between the ontologies of inequalities is necessary in order to [analyze] … practices that have been important in developing appropriate measures to tackle inequalities” ( Walby, Armstrong, and Strid 2012a , 474). A “mutual shaping” approach would seem to justify a continued focus on gender alone, without meaningful engagement with the ontologies of other inequality structures, nor how gender both constructs and is always constructed by them. For Walby et al., mutual shaping “acknowledges the way that systems of social relations change each other at the point of intersection, but do not become something totally different” ( Walby, Armstrong, and Strid 2012b , 235). This contradicts what many Black feminists have argued are systems of social relations that together produce social institutions and positions that are qualitatively different from those produced by one system of social relations alone ( Crenshaw 1991 ). The “mutual shaping” model offered represents an additive approach to intersectionality, in that it suggests that inequalities can be separated from one another; the idea that they change one another only at the “point of intersection” ( Walby, Armstrong, and Strid 2012b , 235) suggests the existence of a point at which there is no intersection. While few authors are explicit in their employment of a “mutually shaping” rather than “mutually constitutive” approach, it is apparent in many white feminist treatments of intersectionality which discuss it as “gender plus” and only in relation to gender, women, women’s studies, and feminism ( Alexander-Floyd 2012 ; Bilge 2013 ; Lewis 2017 ).

Other scholars have not seen recognition of differing ontologies and a conceptualization of inequalities as mutually constitutive as being contradictory from one another: “although discourses of race, gender, class, etc. have their own ontological bases which cannot be reduced to each other, there is no separate concrete meaning of any facet of these social categories, as they are mutually constitutive in any concrete historical moment ” ( Yuval-Davis 2013 , 7; emphasis added). “Mutual shaping” forgoes what is considered a key tenet of intersectionality by many of its theorists, i.e. mutual constitution/construction (e.g. Crenshaw 1989 , 1991 ; Collins 1990 ).

As white feminist engagement with intersectionality increases, the body of literature that is critical of the way that white feminists apply intersectionality in both theory and practice is correspondingly growing (e.g. Alexander-Floyd 2012 ; Bilge 2013 ; Lewis 2013 ; May 2015 ; Tomlinson 2013 ). Within feminist studies, Bilge (2013) argues that “intersectionality … has been systematically depoliticized” (p. 405): “originally focused on transformative and counter-hegemonic knowledge production and radical politics of social justice, [it] has been commodified and colonized for neoliberal regimes” (p. 407). A tendency has been observed, and named, among some European thinkers “to find valuable a ‘purified’ intersectionality, quarantined from its exposure to race” ( Lewis 2013 ; Tomlinson 2013 , 266), a process Bilge calls “whitening” and observes within feminist studies and elsewhere ( Bilge 2013 ). Indeed, the focus on race within intersectionality studies has been found to be less prevalent in Europe than in the United States ( Mugge et al. 2018 ). It is important to carefully examine how intersectionality travels in a European context similarly characterized by anti-Blackness, and which disavows and displaces race ( Bassel and Emejulu 2017a ; Christoffersen 2022b ; Emejulu and van der Scheer 2021 ; Lewis 2013 ). Moreover, Black feminists theorize the ways in which Black women, “as both representation and embodied, sentient being[s]” ( Lewis 2017 , 117) are effaced, discursively and materially made absent. We therefore note the potential for invocations of intersectionality in practice—as well as in academia—to be a site of this epistemological and material erasure of Black women, as knowledge producers and actors in these social worlds ( Lewis 2017 ).

Additive approaches to intersectionality rely on essentialist ideas about what the social structure of gender is and does by ultimately refusing the idea that it exists only within always-interlocking structures of inequality. In so doing, both scholars and practitioners reconstruct gender, like the category “woman,” as always-already white, and as we will demonstrate, nondisabled and cis.

We now move onto contextualize the article within long-running grassroots contestations of white feminist conceptions of gender and womanhood from Black women and women experiencing intersecting inequalities.

We are in the middle of a tumultuous period in which key categories of identification and enactments of power relations through gender are being contested and reconfigured. The bitter debate about what womanhood is, how it is constituted and performed has upended Scottish and English feminisms. To be sure, these debates are in no way new, but debates about the status of trans women in ostensibly “female only” spaces, about race and white supremacy in light of resurgent anti-racist mobilizations, and about colonial memory and decolonization processes have brought to the fore long-standing tensions within feminist politics in the United Kingdom ( Bey 2017 ; Bhambra 2014 ; Emejulu 2022 ). Transness, race, and decoloniality, for instance, force us to historicize that which has been taken for granted—gender and the gender binary—and fundamentally challenge what the conceptual basis of being a “woman” and doing “womanhood” means. This is why Black feminist theorists are so careful in framing intersectionality as mutually constitutive because once you understand that embedded in the idea of “woman” are the normative values of white, bourgeois cisheteronormativity, then the entire fiction of “woman” is exposed ( Emejulu 2022 ; Hartman 2008 ; Sharpe 2016 ; Spillers 1987 ).

Black, Asian, lesbian, queer, and disabled women have long critiqued the excluding and exclusive category of “womanhood” as practiced by mainstream feminism, or what is now more recently termed “white feminism.” Under this framework, gender is the foundation of social inequality and the only category of inequality that can unite all women in a struggle against it. It is presumed that the subject in mainstream feminism is a straight, white, middle-class, and nondisabled woman, and that this particular subject and her experiences can be universalized as the standard bearer for all women across time and space. As such, feminist political strategies are pursued on this basis of “exclusive universalism” ( Bassel and Emejulu 2017a )—from abortion rights to anti-violence against women’s work to the gender pay gap. Because these struggles have, for the most part, excluded different kinds of women and their experiences of inequality at other intersections of race, class, sexuality, disability, and legal status, English and Scottish feminisms have been fractured over these constitutive politics.

For example, the struggle for abortion rights in the 1970s and 1980s had to be expanded by the Organization of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD), the Brixton Black Women’s Group, and other radical Black and Asian activists to include a wider conception of bodily autonomy, encompassing resistance against virginity tests and forced sterilization of women of color in Britain and across the former British colonies ( Brixton Black Women’s Group 1984 ; Bryan, Dadzie, and Scafe 2018 ). Women’s bodily autonomy was not only about the fate of individual women’s bodies in terms of accessing contraception and abortion services but about how collectives of racialized bodies are captured and controlled by the bordering practices of the British state. OWAAD and other radical women of color demonstrated how sexism could not be separated from racism and the colonial relations of the British state. Imbricated in this struggle to expand the boundaries of who is included in womanhood is the longstanding lesbian and queer critique of mainstream feminism and the heteronormative assumptions embedded in much of feminist politics—particularly in relation to the sexual division of labor ( Butler 1999 ; Federici 2004 ). Lesbian, queer, and trans women expanded feminist struggles beyond the gender binary and seeking rights beyond simple equality with (white) men. Lesbian, queer, and trans feminisms expand the terrain of feminist politics by insisting on survival, visibility, desire, and transgression as foundational feminist concerns which can only be addressed when the power relations mobilized through sexuality, gender, class, and race are taken seriously ( Cohen 1997 ; Phelan 1997 ). Indeed, perhaps what is most puzzling about the current trans debate is how it echoes similar bad faith concerns about the “lavender menace” and the fear of lesbian women infiltrating “straight” women’s feminist spaces in the 1960s and 1970s ( Brownmiller 2000 ).

Disabled women challenge ideas of womanhood by politicizing impairment and illness. Rather than framing disabled bodies as broken and in need of fixing, or worse, elimination, disability feminism makes visible our disabling physical and social environments and institutions which render disabled people deviant and abnormal. Through a social model of disability and crip theory, disabled feminists challenge the stigma and invisibility of impairments, by considering how particular bodies are framed as pathological and thus consigned to disposability. Thinking about how gender, race, sexuality, and disability intersect is a direct challenge to dominant feminist approaches to bodily autonomy and caring practices in public and private spaces. Disability feminism forces us to consider how different kinds of women’s bodies operate in space and generate different kinds of politics and strategies for liberation ( Inckle 2014 ; McRuer 2006 ).

Thus, the current uproar about the presence of trans women in feminist spaces, for instance, is part of a long tradition within English and Scottish feminisms of forcing open feminist politics and spaces to not only make them more inclusive but to implode dominant approaches to feminism and womanhood, and build a new kind of intersectional politics capable of understanding and taking action on complex inequalities derived from race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and legal status. While what is a woman is always contested, contemporary debates about trans rights, sex work, decolonization, and anti-racism, and disability rights bring this particular and latent violence in the mainstream movement to the forefront.

We will now turn to discuss our methodology and methods.

The empirical data in this article draw on Christoffersen’s Ph.D. project exploring how equality NGO practitioners in England and Scotland conceptualize and operationalize intersectionality in their work. Mixed-method qualitative case studies of intersectionality’s conceptualization and use were conducted within three networks of equality organizations in three cities in England and Scotland, from 2016 to 2018. These networks bring together racial justice, feminist, disability rights, LGBTI rights, migrants’ rights organizations, and intersectional combinations of these. The case studies were participatory and ethnographic. For one year and six months, Christoffersen attended semi-regular meetings and events of equality networks and participated in their email lists. Networks were involved in the development of research questions and design, and some participants conducted data collection and recruitment.

Within the case studies, four methods were employed: interviews; participant observation; document analysis; and a focus group conducted with one network. Equality networks (rather than solely organizations) were selected because they represent a site of dialogue and joint working where there is not necessarily a significant tradition of or space for this within the equality NGO sector and movements. This is particularly important in a context where equality seeking has predominantly been conducted in “single strand” or “siloed” ways, and where solidarity and coalition are undermined by austerity politics ( Bassel and Emejulu 2017a ). Networks of equality organizations, representing a joining up of single-issue equality areas, create opportunities for dialogue and solidarity building that might engender or further intersectional meaning and practice. Networks were selected that include different types of equality organizations, explicitly take an intersectional approach, and have a policy intermediary, representative role. Christoffersen’s background as a practitioner in the sector was key to participant recruitment. The selected networks aim broadly at cooperation to address identity-based inequality, and advance equality, and work predominantly at local level. They tend, at decision-making levels, to be composed of relatively powerful organizations in their respective sub-sectors. These organizations are predominantly “single strand” and have been established for some time. Individuals, organizations, networks, and cities are anonymized; all names used are pseudonyms.

The data shared in this article draw primarily on research with feminist organizations: in-depth, semi-structured interviews with practitioners, senior managers, and directors, participant observation, and document analysis. Data concerning projects targeted toward disabled women were gathered through analysis of documents about and produced by the projects; participant observation at a meeting concerning one of the projects; and interviews. Documents are not quoted from directly since they are anonymized. Documents were analyzed with respect to how they define intersectionality, explicitly and implicitly, and what influenced work and knowledge in this area; how intersectionality was operationalized in the context of specific activities to which the documents pertain (identified by participants as “intersectional” work, such as the projects discussed below); assumptions and implicit meanings; omissions and exclusions; and framing.

Data concerning debates about trans rights draw on participant observation at network meetings, the focus group, document analysis, and interviews across equality sub-sectors. Participant observation and the focus group provided insight into the interaction of participants/network members representing different “strands,” having divergent histories and movements that have constructed them, and different interests: the possibilities for solidarity, and the challenges and conflict involved. Analysis of these data has centrally involved “asking the other question” ( Crenshaw 1991 ; Matsuda 1991 ): for example, in research with women’s organizations, asking how are race, disability, and gender identity constructed and/or omitted here?

The English and Scottish women’s organizations included are service providers ( n  = 2) and engaged in policy advocacy ( n  = 2); one service provider is large (thirty plus staff) while the remaining organizations are small (ten staff or fewer). Six single-issue feminist organizations participated in the research (alongside network staff and twenty-three other organizations from other equality sub-sectors (Deaf, disabled, faith, LGBTI, racial justice, migrants’ rights, trans) and intersectional combinations, the latter including one disabled women’s organization, one Black and minority ethnic (BME) women’s organization and two BME women of faith organizations. Two policymakers were also interviewed. For the purposes of the project, which was predominantly concerned with practice in organizations, in terms of individual positionality the equality subsector that the participant represents is the most important characteristic to contextualize them alongside their data. This is usually synonymous with an aspect or aspects of the identity of the participant (given that equality organizations are mainly led and staffed by their target communities). All other marginalized characteristics tend to be underrepresented in specific sector organizations, and all sectors but the racial justice and migrants’ rights sectors or intersectional organizations including work on race and/or ethnicity and/or migration status are white-led and predominantly white.

We will now move on to discuss our findings. We begin by establishing how feminist NGO sector practitioners and gender equality policymakers create a narrative that the feminist sector is the beacon of intersectional practice. We then turn to analyze empirical examples demonstrating that while feminist sector practitioners position themselves as the only true arbiters of intersectionality, they practice intersectionality in such a way as to reassert white supremacy and other structural inequalities in their organizations. These examples concern projects targeted toward disabled women and perceptions and conflicts regarding trans rights, selected because most “intersectionality” projects in the sector focus on disability, rather than race, which we find noteworthy and speaks to a broader European project of erasing race and putting disability in competition with race. Further, debates surrounding trans rights were rife during the period when the research was conducted and lack of agreement in this area, e.g. on the need to develop projects targeted toward trans women on par with those targeted toward disabled women, was identified by participants as a key challenge for intersectional solidarity. In other words, these examples emerged inductively from the data collected at this particular time and place concerning how practitioners conceptualize and operationalize intersectionality.

We will first offer examples of how practitioners represent themselves and their organizations as champions of intersectionality, and then turn to examine how such representations have a direct effect on how intersectionality is defined and practiced within these organizations.

Intersectionality’s appropriation by feminist studies ( Bilge 2013 ) is mirrored in perceptions held among some feminist academics, policymakers, and advocates that among equality-seeking NGOs, the feminist sector is the beacon of intersectional practice. This problematic unexamined assumption is reflected in methodological choices: a majority of research on intersectionality in practice has focused exclusively on feminist organizations (e.g. Evans 2016 ; Lépinard, 2014 ; for critiques of this approach, see Bassel and Emejulu 2017a , 2017b ). This perception was found among both prominent gender equality policymakers and feminist sector practitioners.

Women’s sector practitioners laid claim to intersectionality: for instance, Yvonne, director of a women’s organization in Scotland, stated: “we're not just focused on the gender issue, we're focused on the gender plus issues. Until very very recently, I think we were the only ones [among the equality organizations in the city] that had that overarching equality work.” Diane, a practitioner in a women’s organization in England, represented her work in a similar way: “successful services, sustainable services are built around that holistic approach, dealing with the whole woman, not just from a BME perspective or disabled perspective or an issue about class.”

As we can see from Diane’s claim, she constructs the women’s sector as the only sector which does “holistic” approaches, while the racial justice and disability rights sectors are constructed as limited and inherently inattentive to gender and women. Autonomous organizing by and for women of color and disabled women is effaced in both examples.

The perception that the single-issue, white-dominated feminist sector is the origin and pathfinder of intersectionality was echoed by policymakers. For instance, when asked about how she had encountered intersectionality, Margaret said: “It probably came from our [NGO] sector colleagues and … in particular the [single issue] women's organizations … they started to talk about wanting to work to examine intersectionality.” While Margaret went on to name particular white-led feminist organizations, Black women’s organizations were reflected upon only when later specifically asked about: “Black women's organizations had maybe a quicker grasp on it … than the more mainstream race organizations.” The implication was that while Black women’s organizations may have had a “quicker grasp on it” than racial justice organizations, really the white women’s sector was the leader.

While women’s sector practitioners claim that their sector is the only one really doing intersectionality, we argue that these kinds of (mis)representations of the feminist sector come at the expense of thoughtful and critical understandings and applications of intersectionality. We will now examine how ostensibly feminist organizations in England and Scotland practice intersectionality and the impact this has on both disability issues and trans rights in these organizational spaces.

Nothing About Us Without Us

First, we introduce the particular way that feminist sector practitioners understand intersectionality which is central to understanding both empirical examples to follow. “Diversity within” is an applied concept of intersectionality which means addressing “intersections” within an equality strand: for example, differences among women ( Christoffersen 2021 ). Gender remains the focus and is viewed implicitly or explicitly as more important than other inequalities. While this concept of intersectionality is related to single-issue organizing, it is not determined by it. Indeed, this additive “intersectionality” was found to be the most prevalent applied concept of intersectionality among those in the women’s sector, but importantly, this was not the case for any other single-strand sector (migrants’ rights, racial justice, disabled, Deaf, LGBTQI+), nor was it true of any of the intersectional sectors included in the sample. Organizations applied intersectionality in multiple ways and some employed a constitutive understanding of intersectionality ( Christoffersen 2021 ). In terms of individual positionality, “diversity within” was associated with dominant identities—cis, straight, middle-class white women (additive intersectionality serves to further the interests of singularly disadvantaged groups).

It is important to note that participants identified that additive intersectionality was conveyed to them and reproduced through on-the-job training and continuous professional development courses with other white-dominated feminist NGOs and white feminist academics advocating for this particular approach to intersectionality. This additive approach as represented in the training of NGO workers also served to reinforce the idea that white feminists “owned” intersectionality ( Bilge 2013 ).

Intersectionality is the new word … it has relevance … to the work that I do and that I'm focused on, so … obviously from my side it’s more about sort of women and those things that are happening around women and particular groups of women as well and how those things work, and I'm sort of quite interested in sort of gathering and articulating how a response to that or almost sort of the baseline of any work that we go forward doing, how that impacts on access to services, how organizations stay sustainable, there are lots of issues that are emerging now that, are, forgive me if I just keep going on about women specific things, but the generalisation of services, about funds being cut, and how that recognition of intersectionality impacts on women's lot. It’s quite, it’s insidious. The, the prioritising of the individual I think is seriously damaging to women as a group. And those intersectional points, I think is why we need to be clear and articulate, how and when that affects, and keep the case going strongly for keeping those visible. That's, that's my focus.

For Diane, intersectionality is constructed as something which is relevant sometimes, but not all the time; and something which is inherently individualistic. She argues that the recognition of intersectionality is “insidious” for women “as a group.” She sees it as her organizations’ task to narrow down when intersectionality is relevant, implying that oftentimes, it is irrelevant. In other words, she and her organization consider intersectionality reluctantly. It is important to note that few participants employing this understanding were openly reluctant about intersectionality. Indeed, most were enthusiastic about intersectionality as both a theory and a practice. It is only through the comparison of participants’ narratives that this reluctance becomes readily apparent. This understanding of intersectionality as additive (instead of being mutually constitutive with gender, other strands—race, class, sexuality, disability, and legal status—are perceived as being only nominally relevant and only some of the time) reflects an understanding of gender which is almost wholly blind to and arguably hostile to race, class, sexuality, disability, and legal status.

In practice, use of additive intersectionality often involves developing projects targeted at particular groups of women, driven by demographic analysis of service users by equality characteristics, frequently instituted as a funding requirement in light of the 2010 Equality Act. Feminist organizations have not always embraced intersectionality and developed projects out of new political understandings and goodwill. Rather, they have often been driven by equality monitoring requirements of funders revealing their exclusion of women experiencing intersectional disadvantage, even though they are funded to serve “all” in a given geographic community of identity.

Going back to examples like race, we've gone out, we've done engagement with race organizations. We'll always keep doing that, so we're not going to give up but we know that often [disabled BME] people will choose to stay belonging to those organizations … they're not going to get heavily involved in our community when they're involved in those communities.

As we can see, Susan offers problematic “cultural” narratives about “tight-knit communities” which she uses to rationalize why particular minority ethnic groups will not engage with her organization, thereby relieving her and the organization of responsibility to acknowledge and address white supremacy. As a result disabled people of color are particularly excluded from targeted, supposedly “intersectional” projects; there is a yawning gap between race and disability where little work exists at present. 3

In contrast, some organizations, cognizant of the origins of intersectionality, describe as their intersectional work either their own work with Black women (in the case of racial justice organizations), or seeking to widen their work with Black women and/or BME communities; for example, Anya, a practitioner in a racial justice organization, put it like this: “We would look at [intersectionality] more from a point of view of having Black women's organizations involved … we would be looking to make sure that their concerns were not drowned out by the majority and always came to the fore.”

Comparison of three projects addressing violence against disabled women illustrates the problems of diversity within intersectionality (AD 4 5–11, 42). These projects were all identified as “intersectional” by participants. Each project aimed broadly at increasing disabled women’s use of, and access to, anti-violence against women, and girls’ services, responding to the exclusion of disabled women from these services. These services emerged within single-issue women’s organizations and are subject to the exclusions of those organizations: they were not set up with disabled women in mind.

Two of the projects were initiated by nondisabled women’s organizations seeking to increase representation of disabled women among service users. Disabled women came to be identified as a priority because of equality monitoring: when looking at service user data, disabled women were found to be disproportionately underrepresented. For example, Helen, senior manager of a women’s organization in England, stated that her organization set up a targeted service because: “we were looking at some of our targets we were not meeting, we were thinking we weren’t meeting the needs of every [woman in the city] so we were looking at our performance against targets around deaf and disabled women.” Thus, even though Diane, the practitioner we introduced earlier, raised concerns about how intersectionality promoted individualism, we see that ostensible “intersectional service delivery” is driven not necessarily by a commitment to justice but by neoliberal performance management targets.

The projects’ focus was thus building the capacity of nondisabled women’s organizations to serve disabled women: a version of “acting for” or “doing to,” which fails to take into account disabled women’s agency and can be interpreted as paternalistic and part of a longer tradition of working on rather than with disabled women. In both of these projects, representation of disabled women among those running and directing the project was viewed as a bonus, not a necessity. Disabled women playing advisory roles were expected to give up their time for free. There was not necessarily any outreach to the disabled people’s sector in project development or implementation, nor was there attention paid to other inequalities within the projects (e.g. race, class, and/or sexuality). These projects, conceptualized singularly and under neoliberal compliance pressures, were nevertheless viewed as intersectional success stories by their proponents. In one of these two white-led women’s organizations, perceived as being “good on race” by some racial justice organizations since it also had a “race” project, its disability project was developed without race, or rather, whiteness was taken for granted: imagery depicted only white people, race was not highlighted in the documentation, monitoring information revealed that the project beneficiaries were c. 95 percent white while none were Black, and outreach reported did not include any racial justice or BME organizations (AD 42). This was possible because in additive applications of intersectionality, inequalities are conceptualized as being legitimately able to be added and subtracted at will, rather than being viewed as mutually constitutive. Some single-issue women’s organizations may therefore have targeted projects which may be deemed successful, but these are not necessarily “layered” and certainly not intersectional, and thus can be conceptualized and managed entirely separately within an (even quite small) organization. Nevertheless, the fact that such organizations have multiple projects targeted toward particular groups of women experiencing intersecting inequalities makes them heralded for their commitment to intersectionality, and bolsters the misperception held by some academics, policymakers, and practitioners alike that feminist organizations are more committed to intersectionality than other single-issue equality sectors.

In contrast, a third project led by a network of equality organizations focused on developing disabled-women-led peer support services, in other words it centered the agency of disabled women. This project aspired to be disabled-women-led and survivor-led as a core guiding principle. Building relationships with the disabled people’s sector in developing and implementing the project was viewed as essential from the outset. It was the only one of the three similar projects which centrally involved women of color in decision-making and integrated consideration of race, sexuality, and trans status along with gender and disability, consistent with a constitutive rather than an additive understanding of intersectionality. The representation of disabled women’s organizations and women of color in decision-making capacities was critical to the project developing in this way. Disabled women (conceptualized as diverse across other characteristics, rather than as a monolithic group) were viewed as agential, and their social position as mutually constituted rather than additively formed.

In spite of the notable differences in the projects driven by competing concepts of intersectionality, for practitioners employing diversity within intersectionality, intersectionality needs to stop there, or else they would have to admit that they are not really doing intersectionality. Diversity within “intersectionality” has all of the limitations of gender-first approaches to equality which efface women of color’s experiences that are widely critiqued elsewhere ( Crenshaw 1989 , 1991 ; Hankivsky 2005 ). The “diversity within” intersectionality practiced by the women’s sector fails to recognize relationality and the simultaneity of power and oppression insofar as it is additive. For this reason, it tends to view marginalized groups as solely oppressed, and those experiencing intersecting inequalities as having “additional barriers” in a deficit model. Within it, other aspects of identity may be able to be incorporated as “barriers,” but this tends to be limited to one.

Since intersectionally marginalized women are constructed as nonagential and unable to participate in decision-making about the projects, the more powerful, singularly disadvantaged, white, nondisabled women directing the projects are therefore implicitly constructed as ideal “representatives” of intersectionally marginalized women. In the context of the women’s sector, this concept of intersectionality thus serves to further the association of “women” with whiteness and the construction of “woman” as always-already white ( Lewis 2017 ).

We now turn to an empirical example concerning debates over trans rights, which further demonstrates the problems of additive intersectionality in practice. Additive intersectionality ultimately refuses meaningful engagement with structures of inequality other than a totalizing concept of gender which centers the interests of white and otherwise privileged women, thereby enacting violence on trans women and reinscribing white supremacy and ableism both within organizations and outside them.

A key challenge for intersectional practice that research participants identified was the opposition and resistance of some single-issue women’s organizations to the expansion of rights of trans people in general and trans women in particular, in the context of proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004 by Westminster and Holyrood, respectively. This act makes provision for legal change of gender on birth certificates. Important proposed reforms that would simplify what is currently a difficult, bureaucratic, and heavily medicalized process were ultimately abandoned in England and at the time of writing are in discussion in the Scottish Parliament. 5 In contrast to “intersectional” projects focused on disabled women, there were no projects targeted toward trans women delivered by women’s organizations in the sample. The following section will explore why, and what this lack of provision for trans women indicates about the meanings given to “intersectionality” by women’s organizations.

In one equality network, a women’s organization circulated a policy document concerning the local equality strategy on the email list of the inner governing circle of the network. The document, which had been submitted to an influential local policymaker, asserted that trans rights were not “real” rights, and constructed these rights as being in opposition to, and detrimental to, “women’s” rights (AD 28). The existence of trans women was effaced in putting these groups into opposition, constructing them as being mutually exclusive, thereby denying categorical intersection ( Hancock 2013 ). Significantly, the same document later goes on to mention how important it is that equality policy consider intersectionality, here conceptualized as additive. The circulation of this document engendered a breakdown of solidarity in the network. To an extent, the network LGBTI organization representative felt supported by the dismayed responses of others to the circulation of the email in their next meeting. On the other hand, they felt unsupported by the fact that it was left to them to raise it, making it seem to them that they were the only one to view it as problematic.

Intersectionality is fundamentally about recognition of the interrelation of structures of inequality (particularly race, class, and gender). Yet recognition of, and engagement with, the interrelationship of inequality structures, requires a prior step of recognizing the ontology of the structures themselves. This refusal to do so is reflected not only among white feminist academics who appropriate the language of intersectionality but fail to name or recognize white supremacy, instead bending and stretching intersectionality in the interests of white women—but also among practitioners. Many feminist sector practitioners employing additive understandings of intersectionality do not recognize a structure of inequality affecting trans people, as illustrated by the quote below. Recognition of this structure of inequality is particularly problematic for the women’s sector, since it offers fundamental challenges to core beliefs and assumptions on which many organizations are premised (ideas of gender as a binary power relation between women and men, and of gender as a fixed, biological status). The structure of inequality affecting trans people has been variously theorized, but the emerging consensus in trans studies is that it is best theorized as cisgenderism, an ideology that “denies, denigrates, or pathologizes … [that] creates an inherent system of associated power and privilege” ( Lennon and Mistler 2014 , 63).

I [got really angry] at a meeting because somebody called me a cis woman. And I said, "You don’t get to define me." I don’t like the term cis because it’s never been said to me as a description, it's been said to me as an accusation. I am not-You do not have the right. You have not earned the right to call me a cis woman just because that’s your community as a trans community, as a trans woman because that’s what you use.

Here she is expressing discomfort with the idea of cisgender privilege. This was a fairly common position taken by women’s sector organizations and thus, in that city, relations between prominent women’s sector organizations and the LGBTI sector had broken down.

A women’s organization that others had said was “working on” trans inclusion had also signed the policy document seeking to exclude trans issues from equality debates described above (AD 28), yet this organization had also been heralded for its good practice on intersectionality. We suggest this may be indicative of the limits of additive intersectionality in practice, and its lack of attention to representation of intersectionally marginalized women in decision-making: inclusion of trans women in services provided within cisgendered spaces, or simple inclusion of those previously excluded from service provision, does not necessarily signify any change in issue agendas, nor does it signify a lack of discriminatory attitudes, or a commitment to intersectional transformation. It may be that some organizations feel compelled to work toward inclusion by their equality sector peers, while others are compelled by equality and diversity funding requirements, against what they actually desire to do. For these organizations, binary trans identity is incorporated merely as an additional barrier among women , but the relationship between sexism and cisgenderism is left uninterrogated.

I suppose the only thing for us is around … gender neutrality … it's important for us a woman-only organization to be able to emphasise the gendered nature of violence. So if there's a complete gender neutrality, which isn't really about trans women but just about the whole intersex [ sic ] or non-binary issues could impact on us being able to talk about women-only services and also perpetrators as being predominantly male. We want to be able to voice that.

Some can additively recognize inequality which marginalizes trans people and incorporate binary female trans identity as an “additional barrier” among women; but they cannot incorporate the always-interlocking nature of sexism and cisgenderism . Because of this, they are left with no framework in which to recognize nonbinary gender as a marginalized category. This identity presents a fundamental epistemological, ideological challenge to some of the bases on which these feminist organizations are constructed (namely understandings of gender as a binary power relation). This example demonstrates the ways in which additive intersectionality refuses the idea that structures of inequality are always-interlocking. This refusal inherent to additive intersectionality in relation to all inequality structures is especially apparent in this example, because the particular ontologies of the inequality structures involved (sexism and cisgenderism) explicitly generate conflict around shared key concepts and categories (namely gender/“woman”). Meaningful engagement with cisgenderism would explicitly call into question practitioner understandings of gender, as a monolithic, white social structure, itself. Meaningfully engaging with white supremacy would also call gender/“woman” into question, but perhaps less explicitly. Nevertheless, this refusal illustrated by way of the example of cisgenderism is instructive for analyzing enduring refusals of white-led feminist organizations across Europe to meaningfully engage with white supremacy and structural racism, in spite of decades of Black and women of color feminist critique and theorizing.

Ultimately, intersectionality challenges singe-issue white feminist organizations because they are reliant on essential ideas about their constituents, namely their wholly oppressed status. It is difficult to absorb an idea of the simultaneity of privilege/oppression when a whole organization is based on a static view of its constituents as oppressed. Absorbing this idea would also necessitate a redirection of agendas away from benefiting those with relative privilege, which is both predicated on and requires a reconceptualization of what the pertinent issues are facing an organization’s constituents. Perhaps intersectionality can be absorbed additively, until it requires a fundamental rethink of established political agendas invested in victimhood which is at odds with recognizing privilege; until it necessitates the transformation that intersectionality demands.

In this article, we have attempted to examine how an implicit commitment to white supremacy, ableism, and cisgenderism shape how many ostensibly feminist NGOs conceptualize and practice intersectionality. Seemingly committed only to understanding gender as de-raced, de-classed, nondisabled, and de-sexualized, many feminist organizations advance an exclusive and excluding category of womanhood which universalizes straight, cis, nondisabled, and middle-class women to the detriment of all others. This commitment to a limited understanding of gender and gender inequality in turn warps how intersectionality is understood and applied in these organizations. Rather than taking the Black feminist challenge seriously and understanding how race, class, gender, disability, sexuality, and legal status are mutually constitutive, many feminist organizations demur and instead treat intersectionality as a pick and mix—where gender is always picked and, more often than not, placed in competition with other intersecting inequalities. As a result, women seeking support from shrinking social welfare services are under-served, and worse still, poorly served, by being misrepresented as nonagentic victims of their own unfortunate “intersectional circumstances.”

The dynamics we have documented amongst some feminist organizations in England and Scotland should not come as a surprise. Indeed, feminist theory, feminist movements, and feminist organizations have always been wracked by these divisions—of marginalized groups theorizing their own experiences and wanting a feminist politics to not merely “include” them but rather to be fundamentally transformed as a worldview and a social relation so that care for many different kinds of people is at the heart of any kind of radical revisioning of the present and future. It remains unclear whether feminist organizations have the courage to rethink their practices. As additive intersectionality becomes routinized in the sector, we have grave doubts about its future as radical framework for justice and equality.

Work around disabled women is enacted in projects; around trans rights, in a lack of projects, due to lack of agreement on the need for this work.

This is not to at all imply that disability justice work is actually easy.

There are, however, BME disabled people’s organizations who work at this intersection, although these have been hit particularly badly by austerity. Also, some disabled people’s organizations do make substantial efforts to engage BME disabled people.

Each document analyzed has been listed in a database and been renamed as “Anonymous Document [number].”

https://www.scottishtrans.org/our-work/gender-recognition-act-reform-2022/

We wish to thank participants in the research as well as Leah Bassel, anonymous reviewers, and the editors for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

The empirical research used in this article was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Ahmed Sara. 2006 . The nonperformativity of antiracism . Meridians 7 ( 1 ): 104 – 26 .

Google Scholar

Ahmed Sara. 2012 . On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life . Durham, NC : Duke University Press .

Google Preview

Alexander-Floyd Nikol G. 2012 . Disappearing acts: Reclaiming intersectionality in the social sciences in a post-black feminist era . Feminist Formations 24 ( 1 ): 1 – 25 .

Amos Valerie , Lewis Gail , Mama Amina , Parmar Pratibha . 1984 . Editorial . Feminist Review 17 : 1 – 2 .

Bassel Leah , Emejulu Akwugo . 2010 . Struggles for institutional space in France and the UK: Intersectionality and the politics of policy . Politics and Gender 6 ( 4 ): 517 – 44 .

Bassel Leah , Emejulu Akwugo . 2017a . Minority women and austerity: Survival and resistance in France and Britain . Bristol : Policy Press .

Bassel Leah , Emejulu Akwugo . 2017b . Caring subjects: Migrant women and the third sector in Scotland and England . Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies 41 ( 1 ): 36 – 54 .

Bey Marquis. 2017 . The trans-ness of Blackness, the Blackness of trans-ness . Transgender Studies Quarterly 4 ( 2 ): 275 – 95 .

Bhambra Gurminder K. 2014 . Postcolonial and decolonial dialogues . Postcolonial Studies 17 ( 2 ): 115 – 21 .

Bilge Sirma. 2013 . Intersectionality undone: Saving intersectionality from feminist studies . Du Bois Review 10 ( 2 ): 405 – 24 .

Boucher Lisa. 2018 . Radical visions, structural constraints: Challenges to anti-oppressive practice in feminist organizations . Affilia-Journal of Women and Social Work 33 ( 1 ): 24 – 38 .

Brixton Black Women’s Group . 1984 . Black women organizing . Feminist Review , 17 : 84 – 9 .

Brownmiller Susan. 2000 . In our time: Memoir of a revolution . New York : Dial Press .

Bryan Beverley , Dadzie Stella , Scafe Suzanne . 2018 . The heart of the race: Black women’s lives in Britain . London: Verso Books .

Butler Judith. 1999 . Gender trouble . London : Routledge .

Cho Sumi , Crenshaw Kimberlé Williams , McCall Leslie . 2013 . Toward a field of intersectionality studies . Signs 38 ( 4 ): 785 – 810 .

Christoffersen Ashlee. 2022a . Developments in the appropriation of intersectionality by white feminism in European policy . European Journal of Politics and Gender 5 ( 2 ): 267 – 9 .

Christoffersen Ashlee. 2022b . Is intersectional racial justice organising possible? Confronting generic intersectionality . Ethnic and Racial Studies 45 ( 3 ): 407 – 30 .

Christoffersen Ashlee. 2021 . The politics of intersectional practice: Competing concepts of intersectionality . Policy & Politics 49 ( 4 ): 573 – 93 .

Cohen Cathy. 1997 . Punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens the radical potential of queer politics? GLQ 3 : 437 – 65 .

Collins Patricia Hill. 1990 . Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness and the politics of empowerment . New York : Routledge .

Collins Patricia Hill. 2015 . Intersectionality’s definitional dilemmas . Annual Review of Sociology 41 : 1 – 20 .

Collins Patricia Hill. 2019 . Intersectionality as critical social theory . Durham, NC : Duke University Press .

Collins Patricia Hill , Bilge Sirma . 2016 . Intersectionality . 1st ed. Cambridge : Polity .

Crenshaw Kimberlé Williams. 1989 . Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex . University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989 : 139 – 68 .

Crenshaw Kimberlé Williams. 1991 . Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of colour . Stanford Law Review 43 ( 6 ): 1241 – 1299 .

Davis Angela Y. 1983 . Women, race, and class . London : Vintage .

Davis Kathy. 2008 . Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful . Feminist Theory 9 ( 1 ): 67 – 85 .

Emejulu Akwugo. 2022 . Fugitive feminism . London : Silver Press .

Emejulu Akwugo , Sobande Francesca , eds. 2019 . To exist is to resist: Black feminism in Europe . London : Pluto Press .

Emejulu Akwugo , van der Scheer Inez . 2021 . Refusing politics as usual: Women of colour’s radical praxis in London and Amsterdam . Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power doi: 10.1080/1070289X.2021.1914951

English Ashley. 2019 . She who shall not be named: The women that women’s organizations do (and do not) represent in the rulemaking process . Politics & Gender 15 ( 3 ): 572 – 98 .

English Ashley. 2020 . Where are all the single ladies? Marital status and women’s organizations’ rule-making campaigns . Politics & Gender 16 ( 2 ): 581 – 607 .

Evans Elizabeth. 2016 . Intersectionality as feminist praxis in the UK. Women's Studies International Forum 59 : 67 – 75 .

Evans Elizabeth. 2015 . The politics of third wave feminisms: Neoliberalism , intersectionality, and the state in Britain and the US . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan UK .

Federici Silvia. 2004 . Caliban and the witch . New York : Autonomedia .

Florvil Tiffany N. 2020 . Mobilizing black Germany: Afro-German women and the making of a transnational movement . Urbana-Champlain : University of Illinois Press .

Hancock Ange-Marie Alfaro. 2007 . When multiplication doesn’t equal quick addition: Examining intersectionality as a research paradigm . Perspectives on Politics 5 ( 1 ): 63 – 78 .

Hancock Ange-Marie Alfaro. 2013 . Empirical intersectionality: A tale of two approaches . UC Irvine Law Review 3 : 259 – 96 .

Hancock Ange-Marie Alfaro. 2016 . Intersectionality: An Intellectual History . Oxford : Oxford University Press .

Hankivsky Olena. 2005 . Gender mainstreaming vs . diversity mainstreaming. Canadian Journal of Political Science 38 ( 4 ): 977 – 1001 .

Hartman Saidiya. 2008 . Lose your mother: A journey along the Atlantic Slave Route . Reprint ed . New York : Farrar Straus Giroux .

Hull Akasha , Bell-Scott Patricia , Smith Barbara , eds. 2015 . But some of us are brave: Black women’s studies . 2nd ed. New York : The Feminist Press at CUNY .

Hunting Gemma , Hankivsky Olena . 2020 . Cautioning against the co-optation of intersectionality in gender mainstreaming . Journal of International Development 32 ( 3 ): 430 – 36 .

Inckle Kay. 2014 . A lame argument: Profoundly disabled embodiment as critical gender politics . Disability & Society 29 ( 3 ): 388 – 401 .

Johnson Julia R. 2013 . Cisgender privilege, intersectionality, and the criminalization of CeCe McDonald . Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 6 ( 2 ): 135 – 44 .

Jordan-Zachery Julia S. 2007 . Am I a black woman or a woman who is black? A few thoughts on the meaning of intersectionality . Politics & Gender 3 ( 2 ): 254 – 63 .

Laperriere Marie , Lépinard Éléonore . 2016 . Intersectionality as a tool for social movements: Strategies of inclusion and representation in the Quebecois women’s movement . Politics 36 ( 4 ): 374 – 82 .

Lennon Erica , Mistler Brian J. 2014 . Cisgenderism . TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1 ( 1–2 ): 63 – 64 .

Lépinard Éléonore. 2014 . Doing intersectionality: Repertoires of feminist practices in France and Canada . Gender and Society 28 ( 6 ): 877 – 903 .

Lewis Gail. 2013 . Unsafe travel: Experiencing intersectionality and feminist displacements . Signs 38 ( 4 ): 869 – 892 .

Lewis Gail. 2017 . Questions of presence . Feminist Review 117 ( 1 ): 1 – 19 .

Lombardo Emanuela , Agustín Lise Rolandsen . 2016 . Intersectionality in European Union policymaking: The case of gender-based violence . Politics 36 ( 4 ): 364 – 73 .

Lutz Helma. 2015 . Intersectionality as method. DiGeSt Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies 2 ( 1–2 ): 39 – 44 .

Matsuda Mari J. 1991 . Beside my sister, facing the enemy: Legal theory out of coalition . Stanford Law Review 43 ( 6 ): 1183 – 1192 .

May Vivian M. 2015 . Pursuing intersectionality , Unsettling dominant imaginaries . New York : Routledge .

McRuer Robert. 2006 . Crip theory: Cultural signs of queerness and disability . New York : New York University Press .

Mirza Heidi Safia. 1997 . Black British feminism: A reader . London : Routledge .

Mugge L. , Montoya C. , Emejulu A. , Weldon S. L. 2018 . Intersectionality and the politics of knowledge production . European Journal of Politics and Gender 1 ( 1–2 ): 17 – 36 .

Nash Jennifer C. 2019 . Black feminism reimagined: After intersectionality . Durham, NC : Duke University Press .

Optiz May , Oguntoye Katharina , Schultz Dagmar , eds. 1991 . Showing our colors: Afro-German women speak out . Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press .

Phelan Shane. 1997 . The shape of queer: Assimilation and articulation . Women & Politics 18 ( 2 ): 55 – 73 .

Serano Julia. 2007 . Whipping girl: A transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity . Cypress, CA : Seal Press .

Shakespeare Tom , Iezzoni Lisa I. , Groce Nora E. 2009 . Disability and the training of health professionals . Lancet 374 ( 9704 ): 1815 –18 16 .

Sharpe Christina Elizabeth. 2016 . In the wake: On Blackness and being . Durham, NC : Duke University Press .

Spillers Hortense J. 1987 . Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: An American grammar book . Diacritics 17 ( 2 ): 65 – 81 .

Strolovitch Dara Z. 2007 . Affirmative advocacy: Race, class, and gender in interest group politics . Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press .

Terriquez Veronica , Brenes Tizoc , Lopez Abdiel . 2018 . Intersectionality as a multipurpose collective action frame: The case of the undocumented youth movement . Ethnicities 18 ( 2 ): 260 – 76 .

Tomlinson Barbara. 2013 . Colonizing intersectionality: Replicating racial hierarchy in feminist academic arguments . Social Identities 19 ( 2 ): 254 – 72 .

Tungohan Ethel. 2015 . Intersectionality and social justice: Assessing activists’ use of intersectionality through grassroots migrants’ organizations in Canada . Politics, Groups, and Identities 4 ( 3 ): 347 – 36 .

Walby Sylvia , Armstrong Jo , Strid Sofia . 2012a . Intersectionality and the quality of the gender equality architecture . Social Politics 19 ( 4 ): 446 – 81 .

Walby Sylvia , Armstrong Jo , Strid Sofia . 2012b . Intersectionality: Multiple inequalities in social theory . Sociology 46 ( 2 ): 224 – 40 .

Wekker Gloria. 2016 . White innocence: Paradoxes of colonialism and race . Durham, NC : Duke University Press .

Yuval-Davis Nira. 2006 . Intersectionality and feminist politics . European Journal of Women’s Studies 13 ( 3 ): 193 – 209 .

Yuval-Davis Nira. 2013 . A Situated Intersectional Everyday Approach to the Study of Bordering. Working Paper 2 . Brussels : European Commission EU Borderscapes .

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1468-2893
• Print ISSN 1072-4745
• Copyright © 2024 Social Politics LLC
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Writing a Case Study

• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Reading Research Effectively
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• What Is Scholarly vs. Popular?
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Annotated Bibliography
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Essays
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Bibliography

The term case study refers to both a method of analysis and a specific research design for examining a problem, both of which are used in most circumstances to generalize across populations. This tab focuses on the latter--how to design and organize a research paper in the social sciences that analyzes a specific case.

A case study research paper examines a person, place, event, phenomenon, or other type of subject of analysis in order to extrapolate  key themes and results that help predict future trends, illuminate previously hidden issues that can be applied to practice, and/or provide a means for understanding an important research problem with greater clarity. A case study paper usually examines a single subject of analysis, but case study papers can also be designed as a comparative investigation that shows relationships between two or among more than two subjects. The methods used to study a case can rest within a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method investigative paradigm.

Case Studies . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010 ; “What is a Case Study?” In Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London: SAGE, 2010.

How to Approach Writing a Case Study Research Paper

General information about how to choose a topic to investigate can be found under the " Choosing a Research Problem " tab in this writing guide. Review this page because it may help you identify a subject of analysis that can be investigated using a single case study design.

However, identifying a case to investigate involves more than choosing the research problem . A case study encompasses a problem contextualized around the application of in-depth analysis, interpretation, and discussion, often resulting in specific recommendations for action or for improving existing conditions. As Seawright and Gerring note, practical considerations such as time and access to information can influence case selection, but these issues should not be the sole factors used in describing the methodological justification for identifying a particular case to study. Given this, selecting a case includes considering the following:

• Does the case represent an unusual or atypical example of a research problem that requires more in-depth analysis? Cases often represent a topic that rests on the fringes of prior investigations because the case may provide new ways of understanding the research problem. For example, if the research problem is to identify strategies to improve policies that support girl's access to secondary education in predominantly Muslim nations, you could consider using Azerbaijan as a case study rather than selecting a more obvious nation in the Middle East. Doing so may reveal important new insights into recommending how governments in other predominantly Muslim nations can formulate policies that support improved access to education for girls.
• Does the case provide important insight or illuminate a previously hidden problem? In-depth analysis of a case can be based on the hypothesis that the case study will reveal trends or issues that have not been exposed in prior research or will reveal new and important implications for practice. For example, anecdotal evidence may suggest drug use among homeless veterans is related to their patterns of travel throughout the day. Assuming prior studies have not looked at individual travel choices as a way to study access to illicit drug use, a case study that observes a homeless veteran could reveal how issues of personal mobility choices facilitate regular access to illicit drugs. Note that it is important to conduct a thorough literature review to ensure that your assumption about the need to reveal new insights or previously hidden problems is valid and evidence-based.
• Does the case challenge and offer a counter-point to prevailing assumptions? Over time, research on any given topic can fall into a trap of developing assumptions based on outdated studies that are still applied to new or changing conditions or the idea that something should simply be accepted as "common sense," even though the issue has not been thoroughly tested in practice. A case may offer you an opportunity to gather evidence that challenges prevailing assumptions about a research problem and provide a new set of recommendations applied to practice that have not been tested previously. For example, perhaps there has been a long practice among scholars to apply a particular theory in explaining the relationship between two subjects of analysis. Your case could challenge this assumption by applying an innovative theoretical framework [perhaps borrowed from another discipline] to the study a case in order to explore whether this approach offers new ways of understanding the research problem. Taking a contrarian stance is one of the most important ways that new knowledge and understanding develops from existing literature.
• Does the case provide an opportunity to pursue action leading to the resolution of a problem? Another way to think about choosing a case to study is to consider how the results from investigating a particular case may result in findings that reveal ways in which to resolve an existing or emerging problem. For example, studying the case of an unforeseen incident, such as a fatal accident at a railroad crossing, can reveal hidden issues that could be applied to preventative measures that contribute to reducing the chance of accidents in the future. In this example, a case study investigating the accident could lead to a better understanding of where to strategically locate additional signals at other railroad crossings in order to better warn drivers of an approaching train, particularly when visibility is hindered by heavy rain, fog, or at night.
• Does the case offer a new direction in future research? A case study can be used as a tool for exploratory research that points to a need for further examination of the research problem. A case can be used when there are few studies that help predict an outcome or that establish a clear understanding about how best to proceed in addressing a problem. For example, after conducting a thorough literature review [very important!], you discover that little research exists showing the ways in which women contribute to promoting water conservation in rural communities of Uganda. A case study of how women contribute to saving water in a particular village can lay the foundation for understanding the need for more thorough research that documents how women in their roles as cooks and family caregivers think about water as a valuable resource within their community throughout rural regions of east Africa. The case could also point to the need for scholars to apply feminist theories of work and family to the issue of water conservation.

Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. “Building Theories from Case Study Research.” Academy of Management Review 14 (October 1989): 532-550; Emmel, Nick. Sampling and Choosing Cases in Qualitative Research: A Realist Approach . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2013; Gerring, John. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?” American Political Science Review 98 (May 2004): 341-354; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Seawright, Jason and John Gerring. "Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research." Political Research Quarterly 61 (June 2008): 294-308.

Structure and Writing Style

The purpose of a paper in the social sciences designed around a case study is to thoroughly investigate a subject of analysis in order to reveal a new understanding about the research problem and, in so doing, contributing new knowledge to what is already known from previous studies. In applied social sciences disciplines [e.g., education, social work, public administration, etc.], case studies may also be used to reveal best practices, highlight key programs, or investigate interesting aspects of professional work. In general, the structure of a case study research paper is not all that different from a standard college-level research paper. However, there are subtle differences you should be aware of. Here are the key elements to organizing and writing a case study research paper.

I.  Introduction

As with any research paper, your introduction should serve as a roadmap for your readers to ascertain the scope and purpose of your study . The introduction to a case study research paper, however, should not only describe the research problem and its significance, but you should also succinctly describe why the case is being used and how it relates to addressing the problem. The two elements should be linked. With this in mind, a good introduction answers these four questions:

• What was I studying? Describe the research problem and describe the subject of analysis you have chosen to address the problem. Explain how they are linked and what elements of the case will help to expand knowledge and understanding about the problem.
• Why was this topic important to investigate? Describe the significance of the research problem and state why a case study design and the subject of analysis that the paper is designed around is appropriate in addressing the problem.
• What did we know about this topic before I did this study? Provide background that helps lead the reader into the more in-depth literature review to follow. If applicable, summarize prior case study research applied to the research problem and why it fails to adequately address the research problem. Describe why your case will be useful. If no prior case studies have been used to address the research problem, explain why you have selected this subject of analysis.
• How will this study advance new knowledge or new ways of understanding? Explain why your case study will be suitable in helping to expand knowledge and understanding about the research problem.

Each of these questions should be addressed in no more than a few paragraphs. Exceptions to this can be when you are addressing a complex research problem or subject of analysis that requires more in-depth background information.

II.  Literature Review

The literature review for a case study research paper is generally structured the same as it is for any college-level research paper. The difference, however, is that the literature review is focused on providing background information and  enabling historical interpretation of the subject of analysis in relation to the research problem the case is intended to address . This includes synthesizing studies that help to:

• Place relevant works in the context of their contribution to understanding the case study being investigated . This would include summarizing studies that have used a similar subject of analysis to investigate the research problem. If there is literature using the same or a very similar case to study, you need to explain why duplicating past research is important [e.g., conditions have changed; prior studies were conducted long ago, etc.].
• Describe the relationship each work has to the others under consideration that informs the reader why this case is applicable . Your literature review should include a description of any works that support using the case to study the research problem and the underlying research questions.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research using the case study . If applicable, review any research that has examined the research problem using a different research design. Explain how your case study design may reveal new knowledge or a new perspective or that can redirect research in an important new direction.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies . This refers to synthesizing any literature that points to unresolved issues of concern about the research problem and describing how the subject of analysis that forms the case study can help resolve these existing contradictions.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research . Your review should examine any literature that lays a foundation for understanding why your case study design and the subject of analysis around which you have designed your study may reveal a new way of approaching the research problem or offer a perspective that points to the need for additional research.
• Expose any gaps that exist in the literature that the case study could help to fill . Summarize any literature that not only shows how your subject of analysis contributes to understanding the research problem, but how your case contributes to a new way of understanding the problem that prior research has failed to do.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important!] . Collectively, your literature review should always place your case study within the larger domain of prior research about the problem. The overarching purpose of reviewing pertinent literature in a case study paper is to demonstrate that you have thoroughly identified and synthesized prior studies in the context of explaining the relevance of the case in addressing the research problem.

III.  Method

In this section, you explain why you selected a particular subject of analysis to study and the strategy you used to identify and ultimately decide that your case was appropriate in addressing the research problem. The way you describe the methods used varies depending on the type of subject of analysis that frames your case study.

If your subject of analysis is an incident or event . In the social and behavioral sciences, the event or incident that represents the case to be studied is usually bounded by time and place, with a clear beginning and end and with an identifiable location or position relative to its surroundings. The subject of analysis can be a rare or critical event or it can focus on a typical or regular event. The purpose of studying a rare event is to illuminate new ways of thinking about the broader research problem or to test a hypothesis. Critical incident case studies must describe the method by which you identified the event and explain the process by which you determined the validity of this case to inform broader perspectives about the research problem or to reveal new findings. However, the event does not have to be a rare or uniquely significant to support new thinking about the research problem or to challenge an existing hypothesis. For example, Walo, Bull, and Breen conducted a case study to identify and evaluate the direct and indirect economic benefits and costs of a local sports event in the City of Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of their study was to provide new insights from measuring the impact of a typical local sports event that prior studies could not measure well because they focused on large "mega-events." Whether the event is rare or not, the methods section should include an explanation of the following characteristics of the event: a) when did it take place; b) what were the underlying circumstances leading to the event; c) what were the consequences of the event.

If your subject of analysis is a person. Explain why you selected this particular individual to be studied and describe what experience he or she has had that provides an opportunity to advance new understandings about the research problem. Mention any background about this person which might help the reader understand the significance of his/her experiences that make them worthy of study. This includes describing the relationships this person has had with other people, institutions, and/or events that support using him or her as the subject for a case study research paper. It is particularly important to differentiate the person as the subject of analysis from others and to succinctly explain how the person relates to examining the research problem.

If your subject of analysis is a place. In general, a case study that investigates a place suggests a subject of analysis that is unique or special in some way and that this uniqueness can be used to build new understanding or knowledge about the research problem. A case study of a place must not only describe its various attributes relevant to the research problem [e.g., physical, social, cultural, economic, political, etc.], but you must state the method by which you determined that this place will illuminate new understandings about the research problem. It is also important to articulate why a particular place as the case for study is being used if similar places also exist [i.e., if you are studying patterns of homeless encampments of veterans in open spaces, why study Echo Park in Los Angeles rather than Griffith Park?]. If applicable, describe what type of human activity involving this place makes it a good choice to study [e.g., prior research reveals Echo Park has more homeless veterans].

If your subject of analysis is a phenomenon. A phenomenon refers to a fact, occurrence, or circumstance that can be studied or observed but with the cause or explanation to be in question. In this sense, a phenomenon that forms your subject of analysis can encompass anything that can be observed or presumed to exist but is not fully understood. In the social and behavioral sciences, the case usually focuses on human interaction within a complex physical, social, economic, cultural, or political system. For example, the phenomenon could be the observation that many vehicles used by ISIS fighters are small trucks with English language advertisements on them. The research problem could be that ISIS fighters are difficult to combat because they are highly mobile. The research questions could be how and by what means are these vehicles used by ISIS being supplied to the militants and how might supply lines to these vehicles be cut? How might knowing the suppliers of these trucks from overseas reveal larger networks of collaborators and financial support? A case study of a phenomenon most often encompasses an in-depth analysis of a cause and effect that is grounded in an interactive relationship between people and their environment in some way.

NOTE:   The choice of the case or set of cases to study cannot appear random. Evidence that supports the method by which you identified and chose your subject of analysis should be linked to the findings from the literature review. Be sure to cite any prior studies that helped you determine that the case you chose was appropriate for investigating the research problem.

IV.  Discussion

The main elements of your discussion section are generally the same as any research paper, but centered around interpreting and drawing conclusions about the key findings from your case study. Note that a general social sciences research paper may contain a separate section to report findings. However, in a paper designed around a case study, it is more common to combine a description of the findings with the discussion about their implications. The objectives of your discussion section should include the following:

Reiterate the Research Problem/State the Major Findings Briefly reiterate the research problem you are investigating and explain why the subject of analysis around which you designed the case study were used. You should then describe the findings revealed from your study of the case using direct, declarative, and succinct proclamation of the study results. Highlight any findings that were unexpected or especially profound.

Explain the Meaning of the Findings and Why They are Important Systematically explain the meaning of your case study findings and why you believe they are important. Begin this part of the section by repeating what you consider to be your most important or surprising finding first, then systematically review each finding. Be sure to thoroughly extrapolate what your analysis of the case can tell the reader about situations or conditions beyond the actual case that was studied while, at the same time, being careful not to misconstrue or conflate a finding that undermines the external validity of your conclusions.

Relate the Findings to Similar Studies No study in the social sciences is so novel or possesses such a restricted focus that it has absolutely no relation to previously published research. The discussion section should relate your case study results to those found in other studies, particularly if questions raised from prior studies served as the motivation for choosing your subject of analysis. This is important because comparing and contrasting the findings of other studies helps to support the overall importance of your results and it highlights how and in what ways your case study design and the subject of analysis differs from prior research about the topic.

Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings It is important to remember that the purpose of social science research is to discover and not to prove. When writing the discussion section, you should carefully consider all possible explanations for the case study results, rather than just those that fit your hypothesis or prior assumptions and biases. Be alert to what the in-depth analysis of the case may reveal about the research problem, including offering a contrarian perspective to what scholars have stated in prior research.

Acknowledge the Study's Limitations You can state the study's limitations in the conclusion section of your paper but describing the limitations of your subject of analysis in the discussion section provides an opportunity to identify the limitations and explain why they are not significant. This part of the discussion section should also note any unanswered questions or issues your case study could not address. More detailed information about how to document any limitations to your research can be found here .

Suggest Areas for Further Research Although your case study may offer important insights about the research problem, there are likely additional questions related to the problem that remain unanswered or findings that unexpectedly revealed themselves as a result of your in-depth analysis of the case. Be sure that the recommendations for further research are linked to the research problem and that you explain why your recommendations are valid in other contexts and based on the original assumptions of your study.

V.  Conclusion

As with any research paper, you should summarize your conclusion in clear, simple language; emphasize how the findings from your case study differs from or supports prior research and why. Do not simply reiterate the discussion section. Provide a synthesis of key findings presented in the paper to show how these converge to address the research problem. If you haven't already done so in the discussion section, be sure to document the limitations of your case study and needs for further research.

The function of your paper's conclusion is to: 1)  restate the main argument supported by the findings from the analysis of your case; 2) clearly state the context, background, and necessity of pursuing the research problem using a case study design in relation to an issue, controversy, or a gap found from reviewing the literature; and, 3) provide a place for you to persuasively and succinctly restate the significance of your research problem, given that the reader has now been presented with in-depth information about the topic.

Consider the following points to help ensure your conclusion is appropriate:

• If the argument or purpose of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize these points for your reader.
• If prior to your conclusion, you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the conclusion of your paper to describe your main points and explain their significance.
• Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration of the case study's findings that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction or within a new context that emerges from your case study findings.

Note that, depending on the discipline you are writing in and your professor's preferences, the concluding paragraph may contain your final reflections on the evidence presented applied to practice or on the essay's central research problem. However, the nature of being introspective about the subject of analysis you have investigated will depend on whether you are explicitly asked to express your observations in this way.

Problems to Avoid

Overgeneralization One of the goals of a case study is to lay a foundation for understanding broader trends and issues applied to similar circumstances. However, be careful when drawing conclusions from your case study. They must be evidence-based and grounded in the results of the study; otherwise, it is merely speculation. Looking at a prior example, it would be incorrect to state that a factor in improving girls access to education in Azerbaijan and the policy implications this may have for improving access in other Muslim nations is due to girls access to social media if there is no documentary evidence from your case study to indicate this. There may be anecdotal evidence that retention rates were better for girls who were on social media, but this observation would only point to the need for further research and would not be a definitive finding if this was not a part of your original research agenda.

Failure to Document Limitations No case is going to reveal all that needs to be understood about a research problem. Therefore, just as you have to clearly state the limitations of a general research study , you must describe the specific limitations inherent in the subject of analysis. For example, the case of studying how women conceptualize the need for water conservation in a village in Uganda could have limited application in other cultural contexts or in areas where fresh water from rivers or lakes is plentiful and, therefore, conservation is understood differently than preserving access to a scarce resource.

Failure to Extrapolate All Possible Implications Just as you don't want to over-generalize from your case study findings, you also have to be thorough in the consideration of all possible outcomes or recommendations derived from your findings. If you do not, your reader may question the validity of your analysis, particularly if you failed to document an obvious outcome from your case study research. For example, in the case of studying the accident at the railroad crossing to evaluate where and what types of warning signals should be located, you failed to take into consideration speed limit signage as well as warning signals. When designing your case study, be sure you have thoroughly addressed all aspects of the problem and do not leave gaps in your analysis.

Case Studies . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Gerring, John. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Merriam, Sharan B. Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education . Rev. ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998; Miller, Lisa L. “The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 14 (2018): TBD; Mills, Albert J., Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Putney, LeAnn Grogan. "Case Study." In Encyclopedia of Research Design , Neil J. Salkind, editor. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010), pp. 116-120; Simons, Helen. Case Study Research in Practice . London: SAGE Publications, 2009;  Kratochwill,  Thomas R. and Joel R. Levin, editors. Single-Case Research Design and Analysis: New Development for Psychology and Education .  Hilldsale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992; Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London : SAGE, 2010; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 6th edition. Los Angeles, CA, SAGE Publications, 2014; Walo, Maree, Adrian Bull, and Helen Breen. “Achieving Economic Benefits at Local Events: A Case Study of a Local Sports Event.” Festival Management and Event Tourism 4 (1996): 95-106.

Writing Tip

At Least Five Misconceptions about Case Study Research

Social science case studies are often perceived as limited in their ability to create new knowledge because they are not randomly selected and findings cannot be generalized to larger populations. Flyvbjerg examines five misunderstandings about case study research and systematically "corrects" each one. To quote, these are:

Misunderstanding 1 :  General, theoretical [context-independent knowledge is more valuable than concrete, practical (context-dependent) knowledge. Misunderstanding 2 :  One cannot generalize on the basis of an individual case; therefore, the case study cannot contribute to scientific development. Misunderstanding 3 :  The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses; that is, in the first stage of a total research process, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building. Misunderstanding 4 :  The case study contains a bias toward verification, that is, a tendency to confirm the researcher’s preconceived notions. Misunderstanding 5 :  It is often difficult to summarize and develop general propositions and theories on the basis of specific case studies [p. 221].

While writing your paper, think introspectively about how you addressed these misconceptions because to do so can help you strengthen the validity and reliability of your research by clarifying issues of case selection, the testing and challenging of existing assumptions, the interpretation of key findings, and the summation of case outcomes. Think of a case study research paper as a complete, in-depth narrative about the specific properties and key characteristics of your subject of analysis applied to the research problem.

Flyvbjerg, Bent. “Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12 (April 2006): 219-245.

• << Previous: Reviewing Collected Essays
• Next: Writing a Field Report >>
• Last Updated: Jan 17, 2023 10:50 AM
• URL: https://libguides.pointloma.edu/ResearchPaper

• Department of Economic and Social Affairs Social Inclusion
• Meet our Director
• Milestones for Inclusive Social Development.
• Second World Summit For Social Development 2025
• World Summit For Social Development 1995
• 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• UN Common Agenda
• International Days
• International Years
• Social Media
• Second World Summit 2025
• World Summit 1995
• Social Development Issues
• Cooperatives
• Digital Inclusion
• Employment & Decent Work
• Indigenous Peoples
• Poverty Eradication
• Social Inclusion
• Social Protection
• Sport for Development & Peace
• Commission for Social Development (CSocD)
• Conference of States Parties to the CRPD (COSP)
• General Assembly Second Committee
• General Assembly Third Committee
• Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on Ageing
• United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII)
• Publications
• World Social Report
• World Youth Report
• UN Flagship Report On Disability And Development
• State Of The World’s Indigenous Peoples
• Policy Briefs
• General Assembly Reports and Resolutions
• ECOSOC Reports and Resolutions
• UNPFII Recommendations Database
• Capacity Development
• Civil Society
• Expert Group Meetings

UNDESA DISD works to promote greater awareness and increase involvement by civil society in the work of the United Nations on social policy and development issues as it relates to the mandate of the Division.

UNDESA DISD works closely with the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) to promote the important role of cooperatives in social and economic development.

Employment and Decent Work

Extraordinary economic growth and widespread improvements in well-being have failed to close the deep divides across countries and within societies.

Sport for Development and Peace

UNDESA DISD aims to build an awareness of the global situation of young people, as well as promote their rights and aspirations. The mandate of the Focal Point on Youth is predominantly based on the World Programme of Action for Youth.

• Search Search

Americans are becoming less religious. None more than this group

As a Nicaraguan-born girl growing up in Miami, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez remembers going to church five times a week. Her father was a pastor, and their fundamentalist evangelical faith taught that a woman’s role was to serve her husband.

At the same time, Mojica Rodríguez saw how essential women were in keeping the pews filled and the church running. Ultimately, dismayed by the subservient role of women and the church's harsh restrictions on girls, she would leave her faith – and her husband – in her late 20s.

"Women are less inclined to be involved with churches that don’t want us speaking up, that don’t want us to be smart," said Mojica Rodríguez, who went on to earn a master’s degree in divinity. "We’re like the mules of the church – that’s what it feels like."

Though the Nashville-based author and activist is now 39, her experience reflects a growing and, for churches, a potentially worrisome trend of young women eschewing religion. Their pace of departure has overtaken men, recent studies show , reversing patterns of previous generations.

Americans have been disaffiliating from organized religion over the past few decades. About 63% of Americans are Christian, according to the Pew Research Center, down from 90% in the early 1990s.

Meanwhile, the share of those who describe themselves as agnostic, atheist, or “nothing in particular” has risen to 28% . But it had been males, especially young men, leading these shifts – until now.

"For as long as we’ve been conducting surveys on religion, men have exhibited consistently lower levels of religious commitment than women – across cultures, class divisions, any way you cut it," said Daniel A. Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life, whose data helped spotlight the trend. "That’s what made this so notable."

A forthcoming study from Barna Group and Impact 360 Institute reaffirms the pattern, Barna CEO David Kinnaman said. According to the report, Generation Z women, especially those aged 18 to 24, are less likely than young men to identify with a faith or to believe in a higher power.

According to the Pew Center, the shift is occurring primarily among Protestants, 60% of whom identify as evangelical. Experts say multiple factors are driving the trend.

As with Mojica Rodríguez, some fume over gender hierarchies, the inability of women to serve in influential positions, or expectations of chastity placed upon girls. Others, they say, struggle with their church’s positions on reproductive and/or LGBTQ+ rights .

"Young women are moving farther left politically," said Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, who has examined the trend.

As partisanship becomes the prime lens through which many Americans see the world, Burge said, it has infiltrated the church environment, leaving many young women disillusioned and caught between their politics and church expectations.

Should the trend continue, it could have major repercussions for faith communities: Women are often the backbone of their congregations, fueling volunteer efforts and instrumental in engaging their families in the faith.

"Women do the majority of the work that keeps the church going," said former evangelical Sheila Wray Gregoire, who’s studied Christian marriage in the U.S. and Canada for 17 years. "They’re the ones responsible for getting children out of bed and going to church. They’re the ones staffing the Sunday school, making sure potlucks happen or that people are supported when they have an illness or are having a baby. The church is not going to survive without women."

'An emerging area of concern'

Burge, of Eastern Illinois, pored through biennial data compiled by the Cooperative Election Study, a national online survey of more than 50,000 people. The numbers showed that since 2012, the share of young women who identify as agnostic, atheist, or “nothing in particular” has edged closer to and eventually overtaken that of young men.

He said the trend can’t be written off as an anomaly.

“It’s an emerging area of concern,” Burge said. “Right now the ‘check engine’ light is coming on – not every time you start the car, but sometimes. And you don’t know whether it will fix itself or get worse.”

Likewise, the Survey Center on American Life’s 2023 survey of 5,400-plus adults found men represented 54% to 57% of Baby Boomer, Generation X and Millennial individuals who had left their childhood faith.

Among Generation Z, however, the pattern has flipped: 54% of those who’d left the church are female, Meanwhile, nearly four in 10 Gen Z women identify as religiously unaffiliated, compared to a third of Gen Z males.

One statistic showed the vast difference between young women and their elders: While the share of religiously unaffiliated men was 11 points greater among Gen Z than Baby Boomers (34% to 23%), young women were nearly three times as likely than Baby Boomer women to identify as such (39% to 14%).

The issues that drive young women away from the church

Researchers say there’s usually not just one reason women leave the church. Higher levels of education, career goals and deprioritizing of marriage and parenthood can play a role; alternately, so too can the economic pressures of parenthood as the cost of living rises.

Matters of principle may provide the final push. According to the Survey Center on American Life, Generation Z women are far more concerned than previous generations with inequality and scornful of institutions adhering to patriarchal hierarchies – including more conservative churches, where women are not allowed to preach or hold leadership positions.

“There’s a cultural dissonance with young women being told you can do anything and then being told, well, generally, yes, but when it comes to our place of worship there’s restrictions,” Cox said. “That’s another challenge that these places are wrestling with.”

While many denominations now allow the ordination of women, how such policies play out in practice can differ at the local level, where pastors may follow the lead of congregants resistant to such change.

“Why would you want to be at a place where your voice doesn’t matter?” said Gregoire, the former evangelical. “It’s hard when you grow up with a deep, personal faith and then the church you’re in treats you as less than. It’s like having the rug pulled out from under you.”

As incidents of sexual assaults or indiscretions involving church elders have increasingly come to light, the rise of the #MeToo movement and its religious equivalent, #ChurchToo, has “empowered young women to say, I don’t need to put up with this anymore,” Burge said.

Tim Whitaker, director and founder of The New Evangelicals, a digital nonprofit for former evangelicals rethinking their faith, said notions of “ purity culture ” and “modesty culture” – requiring girls to be chaste and dress modestly – are deeply embedded in some evangelical churches.

“I’ve been told that girls as young as 10 are told, ‘Your dress is too short,’” he said.

Purity culture, Gregoire said, teaches that women are responsible for men’s lustful thoughts. That’s one reason she launched Bare Marriage, a podcast and research effort examining the marital and sexual satisfaction of evangelical women in the U.S. and Canada.

“The way a woman dresses can cause a man to stumble – that’s the phrasing they use,” Gregoire said. “Because of that language, and because churches aren’t good at teaching about consent, if girls are sexually assaulted they can feel like it’s their fault because ‘he’s just a man.’”

Such ideas, she said, are pushed in books targeted at teens, young men and parents and distributed by pastors during premarital counseling sessions or presented by peers at bridal showers.

“It isn’t from the pulpit all the time,” said Rebecca Lindenbach, Gregoire’s daughter and partner at Bare Marriage. “But they have curricula with recommended readings. That’s how these things get propagated.”

In general, Gregoire said, church attendance benefits women, contributing to higher marital satisfaction and fewer mental health issues. But it becomes harmful when women internalize what she calls “toxic teachings,” such as that a woman should have frequent sex with her husband to keep him from watching pornography.

Such teachings, she said, persist on the conservative fringes of Southern Baptist and independent fundamentalist Baptist circles.

“Not all churches are like this,” Gregoire said. “But the way many churches handle gender, it’s a choice they’re deliberately making, and it’s turning women off in huge numbers.”

Making the break with purity culture

Mojica Rodríguez, the Nashville author, recalled not being permitted to have male friends or to get phone calls from anyone who wasn’t Christian. Meanwhile, while her parents allowed her brother to stay out late, she couldn’t even leave the house.

She recalled attending a youth conference where boys and girls were divided into two groups; the boys split off to discuss leadership while the girls were made to list the attributes they wanted in a good husband.

At age 20, her date with a male friend was chaperoned, and her pastor father policed such interactions with vigilance.

“He would say, ‘If people can see that I can’t contain you, how will they listen to me?’” she said. “I carried the weight of purity culture.”

When Mojica Rodríguez got married, it was to a man she had met seven months earlier.

“The teaching is that you have to get married fast because lust is a powerful thing,” she said. “They sort of thrust you into marriage with strangers to keep you from the sin of fornication. As far as my mom knows, she witnessed our first kiss at the wedding.”

Mojica Rodríguez gradually realized her marriage also was about escape. Leaving home gave her the freedom to pursue graduate school studies at Vanderbilt University, where she was able to put the teachings of her upbringing into context. Her father had no interest in her theological views, she said, because of her gender.

She was still in the program in 2013 when she decided both to divorce herself from her husband – and her church. When she called her mother for emotional support, she said, her mother instructed her to return to her husband, with no questions about why she had left.

Soon afterward, she discovered she was pregnant, suddenly faced with another difficult choice. She ultimately decided to get an abortion.

“Those two things back to back went against everything I had ever been taught,” she said. “It was like, am I going to feel shame for the rest of my life, or am I going to be OK? It was hard, but it was even more heartbreaking to be so deeply misunderstood by my family and have them vilify my choices through their church lens.”

How will churches respond to the crisis?

Whitaker, of The New Evangelicals, said while many of these issues affect women broadly, young women have fewer ties to the church than their older peers who are more established with families and community bonds.

He partly credits the exodus of young evangelical women to the rise of social media spaces that facilitate the sharing and affirmation of discontent. His organization, which launched in 2022, built an audience on Instagram and now has about 116,000 followers, about 70% of them women.

“These platforms have given them a place to express their thoughts and be heard,” he said. “Seeing other people’s stories, and seeing them make the change, has given them permission to take seriously their own concerns.”

Whitaker hears mostly from those who have left white evangelical churches but doubts many institutions will adapt to stem the tide.

“A lot of them think God has given them clear commands around sexuality, gender and hierarchy, so when people leave for those reasons they see them as defecting from the church completely,” he said. “I don’t think the evangelical church is going to change its tune anytime soon.”

The Rev. David Gushee, author of “After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity” and a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, said that while some evangelical leaders are trying to respond constructively, “others are tripling down on toxic masculinity. It’s very sad, really.”

Tod Bolsinger, an ordained Presbyterian pastor who runs a consulting firm working with churches trying to navigate a changing world, said most are struggling to determine their identity moving forward.

“The challenge is that you’ve got to get really clear on what is so deeply important that it will never change and be prepared to change everything else,” he said.

Bolsinger, an associate professor of leadership formation at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, said cultural shifts mean church leaders can no longer rely on old ways of thinking.

“For generations, people would say young adults will leave, but when they get married and get their babies baptized, they’ll come back,” he said. “No longer. You have to have something to offer people … If we are losing the people who have historically been the most loyal, that’s a four-alarm fire.”

1st Edition

Survival: 66.4

• Taylor & Francis eBooks (Institutional Purchase) Opens in new tab or window

Description

Survival , the IISS’s bimonthly journal, challenges conventional wisdom and brings fresh, often controversial, perspectives on strategic issues of the moment.

In this issue:

·       Douglas Barrie and Timothy Wright underscore the need for Washington to prioritise qualitative rather than quantitative improvements to its nuclear capabilities – free to read  

·       Catherine Fieschi examines the implications of an indecisive French election

·       Daniel Byman and Seth G. Jones explore the increasing ties between China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and obstacles to deeper cooperation 

·       Veronica Anghel and Erik Jones examine how the European Union can utilise its most powerful instrument – enlargement – to stabilise its peripheries 

·       And eight more thought-provoking pieces, as well as our regular Book Reviews and Noteworthy column.

Editor: Dr Dana Allin

Managing Editor: Jonathan Stevenson

Associate Editor: Carolyn West

Editorial Assistant: Conor Hodges

Table of Contents

Survival 65.6 (December 2023–January 2024 ),  pp. 1– 232

The Russo-Ukrainian War and the Durability of Deterrence, by Lawrence Freedman

The Gaza Horror and US Policy, by Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson

The Gaza War and the Region, by Emile Hokayem

Israel and the Palestinians: The Day After, by Chuck Freilich

Time Is Short: Ukraine, Taiwan and the Echoes of 1941, by Charlie Laderman

NATO at 75: The Perils of Empty Promises, by Sara Bjerg Moller

The Primitivisation of Major Warfare, by Lukas Milevski

Slouching Towards a Nuclear Gomorrah, by Anonymous

China’s Legal Diplomacy, by Lynn Kuok

Military Allies and Economic Conflict, by Ethan B. Kapstein

The Ambivalence of Soft Power, by David W. Ellwood

Book Reviews

Europe, by Hanns W. Maull

Counter-terrorism and Intelligence, by Jonathan Stevenson

United States, by David C. Unger

Applying History: Gaza and the Twentieth Century, by Dana H. Allin

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a registered charity with offices in Washington, London, Manama, Singapore and Berlin, is the world’s leading authority on political–military conflict. It is the primary independent source of accurate, objective information on international strategic issues. Publications include  The Military Balance , an annual reference work on each nation’s defence capabilities;  Strategic Survey , an annual review of world affairs;  Survival , a bimonthly journal on international affairs;  Strategic Comments , an online analysis of topical issues in international affairs; and the  Adelphi  series of books on issues of international security.

Critics' Reviews

‘In a world of complex security challenges the need for serious, thoughtful analysis is greater than ever.  Survival ’s combination of elegant writing and rigorous scholarship from the world’s top experts makes it essential reading for both practitioners and academics.’ Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, War Studies King's College London

About VitalSource eBooks

VitalSource is a leading provider of eBooks.

• Access your materials anywhere, at anytime.
• Customer preferences like text size, font type, page color and more.
• Take annotations in line as you read.

Multiple eBook Copies

This eBook is already in your shopping cart. If you would like to replace it with a different purchasing option please remove the current eBook option from your cart.

Book Preview

The country you have selected will result in the following:

• Product pricing will be adjusted to match the corresponding currency.
• The title Perception will be removed from your cart because it is not available in this region.