Here you may find links to case studies from SAGE Research Methods tying important research to chapter concepts to strengthen learning.

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Case Study 1: Repko, A. F. (2012). Integrating theory-based insights on the causes of suicide terrorism. In A. F. Repko & R. Szostak (Eds.), Case studies in interdisciplinary research. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publishing.

Summary: The purpose of this chapter is to show how the application of the interdisciplinary research process delineated in Repko (2008) can illuminate a complex problem, such as suicide terrorism, in which the expert views are typically theory-based.

Case Study 2: van der Lecq, R. (2012). Why we talk: An interdisciplinary approach to the evolutionary origin of language. In A. F. Repko & R. Szostak (Eds.), Case studies in interdisciplinary research. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publishing.

Summary: Questions about the purpose of language arise quite naturally. Although the advantages of having language are obvious, we may still wonder why language is such a complex ability. And if language is so useful, why have only humans acquired it? Of course, other animals have communication systems to inform each other about food or danger, but only humans can communicate about anything, whether it is present, absent, or even fictional. Then there are questions about the origins of human communication. Did we acquire our language capacity in one single step without intermediate forms, or did language evolve gradually through a sequence of stages?

Case Study 3: Taylor, M. R. (2012). Jewish marriage as an expression of Israel’s conflicted identity. In A. F. Repko & R. Szostak (Eds.), Case studies in interdisciplinary research. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publishing.

Summary: A study of the institution of Jewish marriage and its place in Israel’s conflicted identity may generate insights that can be applied to broader issues of inequality, such as the situation of Israeli Arabs, a sizable minority who face issues in some ways analogous to those of non-Orthodox Jews and other non-Jews in Israel. An interdisciplinary approach to the institution of Jewish marriage is necessary because no single discipline is able to provide a comprehensive understanding of its complex and emblematic role in Israeli democracy. The interdisciplinary research process offers the most effective way to consider each contributing discipline’s perspective, find common ground between conflicting insights, integrate these insights, and apply the resulting understanding to broader issues in Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Case Study 4: Keestra, M. (2012). Understanding human action: Integrating meanings, mechanisms, causes, and contexts. In A. F. Repko & R. Szostak (Eds.), Case studies in interdisciplinary research. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publishing.

Summary: Humans are capable of understanding an incredible variety of actions performed by other humans. Even though these range from primary biological actions, like eating and fleeing, to acts in parliament or in poetry, humans generally can make sense of each other’s actions. Understanding other people’s actions is called action understanding, and it can transcend differences in race, gender, culture, age, and social and historical circumstances. Action understanding is the cognitive ability to make sense of another person’s action by integrating perceptual information about the behavior with knowledge about the immediate and sociocultural contexts of the action and with one’s own experience. At present, there is a need for a theoretical framework that is capable of explaining a phenomenon as complex as human action. Such a framework requires integrating insights from multiple disciplines. The purpose of this chapter is to propose a “mechanism-based explanation” of action understanding that will provide a theoretical framework for integrating various and often conflicting disciplinary insights. Proposing an integrative theoretical frame is a common practice in the sciences. Such a frame enables scientists to explain many facts that have been observed while predicting others.

Case Study 5: Henry, S., & Bracy, N. L. (2012). Integrative theory in criminology applied to the complex social problem of school violence. In A. F. Repko & R. Szostak (Eds.), Case studies in interdisciplinary research. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publishing.

Summary: In this chapter, we explore the last steps of Repko’s (2008) research process: how to integrate insights to produce interdisciplinary understanding. We do so by examining the insights of those criminological theorists who have been attempting to develop integrative theory for the past 30 years. In the first section of the chapter, we critically review the issues that have arisen in criminological theory around what should be integrated from the disciplines beyond simply “insights.” And in the second section, we show how criminologists striving for an integrated theory have applied this to explain the crime of violence. In the third section, we sketch out what an interdisciplinary understanding of school violence might look like and indicate its policy implications.