Case Studies —Why and How

Abstract

Harry Broudy argues that the persistent criticism of teachers and of teacher education programs is due in part to the absence of a “consensus of the learned” about how teachers should be educated. Broudy's position is that a working consensus could be established through a case-study method in teacher education if cases were developed to portray important problems identified by teachers as typical and recurrent in their professional practice. Such case study, in Broudy's view, would develop prospective teachers' abilities to bring educational theory and research to bear in interpreting perennial problems and exploring alternative solutions to them.