10/29 Blog

The last chapter of On the Case is about “Making a Case Matter.” The sections of the book were generalizability, collapsing cases and blurring boundaries, last looks at data from Mrs. Kay and Ms. Yung, and a final discussion about going beyond the singular case, as the authors say, “researchers, however (unlike readers) seek to move beyond the specifics of a single case… to assertions about the phenomenon itself” (122). The main point that could be generally applied was that as interesting as individual cases may be, they should not be expected to be an exact practice for all future expectations. It is important that a researcher recognize what was specific to the particular case and what data can be extracted to have meaning out of that context and in others. The “details of a case” need to be “situated within broader assertions” so the researcher can “synthesize these experience so that common principles become salient” (Dyson and Genishi 131).

Much of this chapter focused on the imagined “Madlenka.” I guess they have been using an imaginary case so they could make everything in the case fit just right with what they have to say and they had the real cases so their assertions don’t just sound like make-believe. The authors say, “our imagined researcher Liz…aimed to construct propositional assertions that situated her analytic work on Madlenka’s block in larger professional discussions about intergenerational learning” to illustrate the chapter’s theme of generalizing (115).

They focused so heavily on Madlenka though. Perhaps they were using the “narrative” of this fictional multicultural example to illustrate rather than tell their ideas. Maybe they also wanted to take their research outside the classroom? I did enjoy reading about Madleka; she sounds precocious. But she was quite a staple in the content of the book. Perhaps you could even think of Madlenka herself as a generalizability. She can’t really be context bound (because she is not real); she exists to be a specific example of general principles of research and case studies. “Madlenka’s block,” Dyson and Genishi point out, is “like many sites in these times of mass media, transnational workers and refugees”; they make her general, and Liz’s research a generalized example of a story of a how a case study could unfold (119).

After reading this book, I certainly feel like I am more familiar with both case study based and educational research. If I ever need to take on a case study of my own, I will certainly refer back to Dyson and Genishi. If I ever join the academic world as a professional and not just a student, I could see myself needing to do this type of research. The stories of the cases of individuals were really interesting to read about and it made me think about how I might position myself if I am ever in situations that could be potential research sites like the classrooms mentioned in On the Case.