Product Description: Case-based methods have a long history in the social sciences. They are extensively used and raise many practical and theoretical questions. This book provides a comprehensive, critical examination of case-oriented research. It offers concrete proposals about the best research methods and provides an unparalleled guide to the emergence and complexity of the field...read more

Product Description: For over twenty years Charles C. Ragin has been at the forefront of the development of innovative methods for social scientists. In Redesigning Social Inquiry, he continues his campaign to revitalize the field, challenging major aspects of the conventional template for social science research while offering a clear alternative...read more

Product Description: Configurational Comparative Methods paves the way for an innovative approach to empirical scientific work through a strategy that integrates key strengths of both qualitative (case-oriented) and quantitative (variable-oriented) approaches...read more

Product Description: In this innovative approach to the practice of social science, Charles Ragin explores the use of fuzzy sets to bridge the divide between quantitative and qualitative methods. Paradoxically, the fuzzy set is a powerful tool because it replaces an unwieldy, "fuzzy" instrument—the variable, which establishes only the positions of cases relative to each other, with a precise one—degree of membership in a well-defined set...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Constructing Social Research: The Unity and Diversity of Method, Second Edition is a concise, innovative text designed for Research Methods courses in the Social Sciences. The main goal of this Sociology for a New Century Series text is to show unity within the diversity of activities called social research...read more

Product Description: The concept of the case is a basic feature of social science research and yet many questions about how a case should be defined, how cases should be selected and what the criteria are for a good case or set of cases are far from settled...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Professor Ragin proposes a synthetic new strategy, based on an application of Boolean algebra, that will combine the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative sociology. Elegantly accessible and germane to the work of all the social sciences, this book will garner interest, debate, and praise from many quarters...read more