Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2019-3
Using the Extended Case Method to Expand the Scope of Policy Research: An Examination of the Educational Outcomes of a College Preparation Program for Low-Income,Racially Minoritized Students
This article describes how the extended case method, a tool of critical qualitative inquiry rooted in ethnography, can be used to inform policy research. Using examples drawn from a yearlong ethnographic study of a college preparation program, it demonstrates the utility of the extended case method for policy research through a discussion of literature on educational policy and qualitative research methods. It then uses study findings to show how the extended case method can address challenges related to context and meaning in policy evaluation focused on causal relationships. Implications for future qualitative policy work are also offered.
AbmaT. (2000). Responding to ambiguity, responding to change the value of a responsive approach to evaluation. Evaluation and Program Planning, 23, 461-470.
2.
AbmaT. (2006). The practice and politics of responsive evaluation. American Journal of Evaluation, 27, 31-43.
3.
AbmaT.WiddershovenG. (2008). Evaluation and/as social relation. Evaluation, 14, 209-225.
4.
AndersonJ. (2015). Public policymaking (8th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
5.
ArndtL.DavisA. (2011). Warrior spirit: Soul wound and coping among American Indians in law enforcement. The Counseling Psychologist, 39, 527-569.
6.
AstburyB.LeeuwF. (2010). Unpacking black boxes: Mechanisms and theory building in evaluation. American Journal of Evaluation, 31, 363-381.
7.
BakerD. (2014). The schooled society: The educational transformation of global culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
8.
BaumS.MaJ. (2010). Tuition discounting: Institutional aid patterns at public and private colleges and universities: Trends in Higher Education Series. New York, NY: College Board.
9.
BeachD.PedersenR. (2016). Causal case study methods: Foundations and guidelines for comparing, matching, and tracing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
BurawoyM. (1991). Ethnography unbound: Power and resistance in the modern metropolis. Berkeley: University of California Press.
12.
BurawoyM. (1998). The extended case method. Sociological Theory, 16, 4-33.
13.
BurawoyM. (2009). The extended case method: Four countries, four decades, four great transformations, and one theoretical tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
14.
CalderL. (2001). Financing the American dream: A cultural history of consumer credit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
15.
ChenR.DesJardinsS. (2010). Investigating the impact of financial aid on student dropout risks: Racial and ethnic differences. Journal of Higher Education, 81, 179-208.
16.
CohenL. (2003). A consumers’ republic: The politics of mass consumption in postwar America. New York, NY: Knopf.
17.
CollinsR. (1979). The credential society. New York, NY: Academic Press.
18.
CooksyL.GillP.KellyP. (2001). The program logic model as an integrative framework for a multimethod evaluation. Evaluation and Program Planning, 24, 119-128.
19.
CooperB. S.CibulkaJ. G.FusarelliL. D. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of education politics and policy. New York, NY: Routledge.
20.
CreswellJ.CreswellJ. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
21.
CrossG. (2002). An all-consuming century. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
22.
Deil-AmenR.MartinezG. (2015). College for all Latinos? The role of high school messages in facing college challenges. Teachers College Record, 117, 1-50.
23.
DockeryD. (2012). School dropout indicators, trends, and interventions for school counselors. Journal of School Counseling, 10(12). Retrieved from http://jsc.montana.edu/articles/v10n12.pdf
24.
DonohueK. (2006). Freedom from want: American liberalism and the idea of the consumer. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
25.
EliasophN.LichtermanP. (1999). “We begin with our favorite theory . . . ”: Reconstructing the extended case method. Sociological Theory, 17, 228-234.
26.
EppleD.RomanoR.SiegH. (2006). Admission, tuition, and financial aid policies in the market for higher education. Econometrica, 74, 885-928.
27.
FayB. (1996). Contemporary philosophy of social science: A multicultural approach. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
28.
FieldenS.RuschM.MasindaM.SandsJ.FrankishJ.EvoyB. (2007). Key considerations for logic model development in research partnerships: A Canadian case study. Evaluation and Program Planning, 30, 115-124.
29.
FreemanK. (2012). African Americans and college choice: The influence of family and school. Albany: SUNY Press.
30.
FriedensenR.McCraeB.KimballE. (2017). Using qualitative research to document variations in student experience. In KimballE.LoyaK. (Eds.), Using qualitative research to promote organizational intelligence (pp. 53-64). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
31.
GaberJ.GaberS. (2018). Qualitative analysis for planning and policy: Beyond the numbers. New York, NY: Routledge.
32.
GeorgeA. L.BennettA. (2005). Case studies and theory development in the social sciences. Cambridge: MIT.
Goldrick-RabS.KelchenR.HarrisD.BensonJ. (2016). Reducing income inequality in educational attainment: Experimental evidence on the impact of financial aid on college completion. American Journal of Sociology, 121, 1762-1817.
35.
HandelmanD. (2006). The extended case: Interactional foundations and prospective dimensions. In EvensT. M. S.HandelmanD. (Eds.), The Manchester School: Practice and ethnographic praxis in anthropology (pp. 94-117). New York, NY: Berghahn Books.
36.
HarklauL.NorwoodR. (2005). Negotiating researcher roles in ethnographic program evaluation. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 36, 278-288.
37.
HillN.WangM. (2015). From middle school to college: Developing aspirations, promoting engagement, and indirect pathways from parenting to post high school enrollment. Developmental Psychology, 51, 224-235.
38.
HoxbyC.TurnerS. (2015). What high-achieving low-income students know about college. American Economic Review, 105, 514-517.
39.
HughesR.KimballE.KoricichA. (in press). Multidirectional effects in college-going: A review of the literature and a conceptual model for future research. In PaulsenM. (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research. New York, NY: Springer.
40.
IgoS. E. (2007). The averaged American: Surveys, citizens, and the making of a mass public. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
JulianD. (1997). The utilization of the logic model as a system level planning and evaluation device. Evaluation and Program Planning, 20, 251-257.
43.
KayA.BakerP. (2015). What can causal process tracing offer to policy studies? A review of the literature. Policy Studies Journal, 43, 1-21.
44.
KimballE. (2011). College admission in a contested marketplace: The 20th century and a new logic for access. Journal of College Admission, 207, 20-30.
45.
KimballE. (2016). Reconciling the knowledge of scholars and practitioners: An extended case analysis of the role of theory in student affairs. Critical Questions in Education, 7, 269-288.
46.
KimballE.FriedensenR. (2018). Professions and the post-truth era: A historiographic analysis of the role of expert judgment in the destabilization of objectivity. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 46. Retrieved from https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/3357
47.
LagemannE. C. (2002). An elusive science: The troubling history of education research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
48.
LukerK. (2008). Salsa dancing into the social sciences: Research in the age of info-glut. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
49.
MaxwellJ. (2004). Causal explanation, qualitative research, and scientific inquiry in education. Educational Researcher, 33(2), 3-11.
50.
MertensD. M. (2014). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
51.
OakesJ. (2005). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
52.
PageL.Scott-ClaytonJ. (2016). Improving college access in the United States: Barriers and policy responses. Economics of Education Review, 51, 4-22.
53.
PasqueP. A.LechugaV. M. (Eds.). (2017). Qualitative inquiry in higher education organization and policy research. New York, NY: Routledge.
54.
PattonM. Q. (2015). Qualitative research and evaluation methods: Integrating theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
55.
PaulsenM. B.St. JohnE. P. (2002). Social class and college costs: Examining the financial nexus between college choice and persistence. Journal of Higher Education, 73, 189-236.
56.
PawsonR.WongG.OwenL. (2011). Known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns: The predicament of evidence-based policy. American Journal of Evaluation, 32, 518-546.
57.
PerezP. A.McDonoughP. M. (2008). Understanding Latina and Latino college choice: A social capital and chain migration analysis. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 7, 249-265.
58.
PernaL. W. (2010). Toward a more complete understanding of the role of financial aid in promoting college enrollment: The importance of context. In PaulsenM. (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 129-179). New York, NY: Springer.
59.
PorterT. M. (1995). Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
60.
RadwinD.ConzelmannJ. G.NunneryA.LacyT. A.WuJ.LewS.. . . SiegelP. (2018). 2015–16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:16): Student financial aid estimates for 2015–16 (NCES 2018-466). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
61.
RiesmanD. R. (1980). On higher education: The academic enterprise in an era of rising student consumerism (2nd ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
62.
RippnerJ. A. (2015). The American education policy landscape. New York, NY: Routledge.
63.
RodriguezP.NuñezA. (2015). Constructing college “choice” for Latino students: The organizational culture of an urban catholic high school. In CejaM.PerezP. (Eds.), Higher education access and choice for Latino students (pp. 38-49). New York, NY: Routledge.
64.
SandersonI. (2002). Evaluation, policy learning and evidence-based policy making. Public Administration, 80(1), 1-22.
65.
SellarS. (2015). A feel for numbers: Affect, data and education policy. Critical Studies in Education, 56, 131-146.
66.
ShapiroD.DundarA.HuieF.WakhunguP.YuanX.NathanA.HwangY. A. (2017). Completing college: A national view of student attainment rates by race and ethnicity—Fall 2010 cohort (Signature Report No. 12b). Herndon, VA: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
67.
StoneD. A. (2012). Policy paradox: The art of political decision making (3rd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
68.
TavoryI.TimmermansS. (2009). Two cases of ethnography: Grounded theory and the extended case method. Ethnography, 10, 243-263.
69.
Van VelsenJ. (1979). The extended case method and situational analysis. In EpsteinA. L. (Ed.), The craft of social anthropology (pp. 129-149). Oxford, England: Pergamon Press.
70.
WeltonA. D.MartinezM. A. (2014). Coloring the college pathway: A more culturally responsive approach to college readiness and access for students of color in secondary schools. Urban Review, 46, 197-223.
YinR. K. (2017). Case study research and applications: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
73.
ZiskinM.FischerM. A.TorresV.PellicciottiB.Player-SandersJ. (2014). Working students’ perceptions of paying for college: Understanding the connections between financial aid and work. Review of Higher Education, 37, 429-467.
