Final Flashcards
focus groups
A form of in-depth interviewing that uses moderated group discussions as a means of data collection. It uses the discussion and interaction among participants as data.
details about FG
Focus groups are a type of qualitative interviewing that involves group discussions moderated by a researcher on a specific topic. These groups do not require consensus; rather, the researchers seek to study the discussion that participants carry out (Morgan 2008) to explore how a specific group of people discusses aspects of their lives. We can learn not only what individuals think about a particular topic but also how they talk about the topic with each other. A focus-group study involves a number of groups, and each group usually includes between six and eight participants.
When do we use focus groups?
are particularly appropriate when you are interested in learning about how people understand things that occur in their everyday lives or that they have thought about. For this reason, you would use focus groups only if the topics you were exploring were familiar to the participants. Indeed, focus groups work best when the participants are knowledgeable enough or have had enough experience to carry on a free-flowing conversation about the topic under study.
Focus groups may also be useful for topics that participants care deeply about and may find hard to talk about in individual interviews.
talking circles
A practice that originated among the Woodland Tribes in the midwest as a parliamentary procedure. They have a sacred meaning for many Indigenous communities (Lavallé 2009) and involve passing around a small object with each person’s having the option to speak or to pass it on. Some Indigenous researchers recommend talking circles rather than focus groups for Indigenous research.
cons of focus groups
require a great deal of thought, planning, and, sometimes, expense.
biggest problem in focus groups
poor recruiting the “Achilles heel” of focus groups because if the members of each group are not compatible, there will not be a rich discussion. Therefore, most focus-group researchers suggest that each group should be made up of participants with common characteristics because people are likely to share their personal views and disclose more to people they see as like themselves
how does one recruit for FG?
You might, for example, use snowball sampling, whereby you locate one individual and ask that person to help you find others. If we wanted to do a focus-group study about book clubs, we might find a member of one club and see if that person might help us to recruit members of that club for a focus group.
When looking for participants for their study of shopping, they wanted to talk to ordinary people rather than to experts. They initially used a traditional marketing-research method that involves calling potential participants. When they were unsuccessful, they turned to settings where people would ordinarily meet, talk, and socialize, including mother and toddler centres, seniors’ homes, and job clubs.
what do you do once people agree to participate in the study?
Once people have agreed to participate in the study, it is a good idea to send them a follow-up message that includes the date, time, and place that the focus group will take place. If you have offered to cover transportation, babysitting, or other costs, or if you are providing a modest honorarium, this message should remind the participants of these details. A brief agenda and your contact information would also be useful to include in the follow-up message.
moderator
The individual who facilitates focus groups. This person guides the group with as little intervention as possible while maintaining the group’s focus.
list of qualities and characteristics of a good moderator:
- Familiarity with moderating focus groups
- Affinity to the task
- Ability to listen sincerely and inspire people to talk
- Ability to maintain enthusiasm and interest
- Curiosity and respect for the participants
- Good interpersonal communication and managing skills
- Ability to appear neutral so as not to steer the conversation
- Confidence and the ability to be in control, while staying flexible and adaptable
forming stage
suggest that the moderator encourage people to talk as though they were on a coffee break.
mixed-gender groups
Not surprisingly, in mixed-gender groups the topics preferred by men tend to dominate, thereby making these groups similar to all-male groups. This phenomenon is one reason that researchers often prefer separate groups for each gender identity.
“the first person to speak or to speak at length” often sets the tone or the direction of the whole discussion. This person often has higher status or power and will “tend to contribute more ‘successful’ topics,” those that others will take up.
strategies you might use to avoid having one person dominate the discussion.
when they had an established leader in the group, they would attempt to “co-opt” that person into the “process of leading the group without inhibiting” others from expressing their own points of view.
the moderator might discourage them by avoiding eye contact, not acknowledging their contributions, calling on other participants, and asking others carefully worded questions about what they think. The moderator can address the opposite challenge of shy participants by making eye contact with them or nodding encouragingly.
moderator can ask probing questions: “What do others think?” “Do others agree?” “Has anyone had a different experience?” “Does anyone see things differently?” As the conversation continues, the moderator should continually encourage the participants to explore how they are both similar and different from each other. Morgan (1997:12) writes that in the process of “sharing and comparing,” the participants do much of the work for the moderator.
norming
the middle stages of the focus group as the “norming” and “performing” stages. She writes that during these two stages the participants work together as a team to address the issue and are interactive and productive. They value each other’s points of view. During these stages, they are likely to come up with new ideas and ways of thinking about the issues under discussion.
adjourning stage?
it is time for the moderator to wind things up. They might summarize the discussion and ask if anyone has anything to add to the summary. The last question, as always, requests the participants to bring up any topics the group has not addressed. If a response leads to a rich discussion, it might be a good idea to add the new topic to the discussion guide for future groups. Finally, the moderator can invite questions the participants might have about the research itself.
how the social and relational contexts affected the discussion in the focus groups.
She tells a story of running into one of the group members some time later who told her that she had not disclosed having been raped because her group was composed mostly of men and she thought it would make them uncomfortable if she raised the issue. In addition, the group took place at the woman’s workplace, where, she felt, bringing up her experience would be awkward.
issue of participants’ “invention or exaggeration of experience” in a group
This phenomenon occurred in a focus group made up of members of a university fraternity who lived together and knew each other well. This group’s discussion was different from that of any other group. The first participant who spoke in the group talked about violence between him and his father; they had gotten into a fistfight. Hollander notes that this story set the tone for the rest of the session. Other participants followed by telling stories about violence that they had been involved in. This was the only group in which a theme was commission of violence. In every other group, the discussion revolved around victimization, fear of victimization, and how to avoid becoming a victim. Interestingly, participants had filled out a survey before the groups started, and none of the incidents that came up during the discussion had been mentioned on the surveys. Hollander suggests that a combination of the gender and associational and conversational contexts “encouraged the men to exaggerate their violent exploits and mute their experiences of victimization and fear” (p. 624). As Deborah read the report of this group, she was reminded of how men might try to outdo each other in tales of sexual conquest. Hollander suggests that the pressure on young men to differentiate themselves from women to demonstrate their masculinity “encouraged narratives that would boost participants’ apparent conformity to hegemonic masculine experiences” (p. 625). As we discussed above, when the first participant sets a particular tone, it creates a precedent for what follows.
career
The stages a social group passes through. In focus-group research, there may be a common series of stages that the groups go through in their discussion.
men vs women.
Women were most likely to interrupt other women, and men were least likely to interrupt other men. Men were also more likely to divert the discussion onto another topic, to express puzzlement about a topic, and to make a summary statement that indicated they thought it was time for the group to move onto another topic.
unobtrusive methods
Research methods that do not involve interaction between the researcher and the participants; the researcher amasses data by collecting and analyzing materials that already exist.
manifest content
Obvious, surface-level meanings that are immediately evident.
ex. McDonalds - the ways the food items were described, the ways the items were organized into different categories, and the way the items were listed within each category, in order from most to least popular.
latent content
Subtle or implicit meanings that require interpretation. Qualitative researchers focus on latent content when they do content analysis.
ex. McDonalds - they concluded that the menus “convey messages that enable fast decisions and increase turnover” and that the categories of items, such as “Value Meals” and “Happy Meals,” “raise per person expenditure and minimize complex, ad-hoc item selection”
Analyzing Pre-existing Documents
In highly literate societies, written texts provide particularly telling windows into social worlds. Think about how much statistical records, survey forms, letters, autobiographies, articles in professional journals and magazines, and even works of fiction can tell us about the interests and concerns of the individuals who created them
Statistical Records
When conducting a study, researchers often consult pre-existing statistical records to get a general sense of a topic. In addition, many researchers have repurposed or reinterpreted existing statistics to reinforce their own findings or theories.
More recently, we have realized that sources of statistical data can reveal as much about a social group as the statistics themselves.
Researchers can also gain insight into the ideologies behind previously conducted studies by analyzing the design of the forms used to collect statistical data. To understand what such analysis can reveal, let us compare how questions of “race” and ethnicity are treated on the American census (US Census Bureau 2010) to how such questions are treated on the Canadian census (Statistics Canada 2017).
maps
Maps provide a strong example of the sort of documents that represent not “reality” itself but a translation of reality. Think of how your city is depicted on a road map, and compare that representation to the geographical reality you encounter every day.
it wont show the hills and stuff, etc.
how do mapmakers construct maps in a particular way to accomplish political goals?
They studied how Israeli groups used maps to “invoke authority, appeal to particular audiences, elaborate social concerns and make political statements” (p. 94). They analyzed how maps of Israel had changed over time, from the 1950s to the present, to serve as “tools in territorial power struggles and have been visually powerful means for silencing a population by designifying its presence on the maps” (p. 32). Early maps emphasized the threat Israel felt from its Arab neighbours, while more recent maps seek to make the Palestinian territories appear insignificant. It is also likely that we would see changes in Palestinian maps over time as their relationship with Israel has changed.
Letters and Autobiographies
Personal letters and autobiographical accounts can provide insight into individuals’ lived experiences.
Ultimately, this approach led the researchers to understand immigrants’ lives with greater depth than had ever been accomplished before, and this deep understanding led the researchers to identify the concept of social disorganization.
social disorganization
A concept developed by Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) to describe how rapid social change can lead to the loss of norms and values within an established culture.
an ethnography of Self-harm
analyzing teenage suicide notes and diary entries. He augmented his data by talking to the writers of the notes or to their close friends (when the writer had committed suicide). In these notes and diaries, he identifies recurring themes of a breakdown in family structure and the sense of being different. Williams concludes that “understanding teen suicide requires respect for teens’ insights and an understanding of history and culture”
identity foreclosure
In relation to a widow’s sense of identity, the process through which a widow loses her sense of identity after her husband dies, even when she attempts to hang on to her identity as a wife. Identity foreclosure takes place on three levels: the subjective level, the interpersonal level, and the institutional level (van den Hoonaard 1997).
Professional Publications
Journal articles and scholarly publications can provide broader coverage of a topic than a single researcher might otherwise be able to accumulate on their own. By analyzing ongoing discussions and controversies in professional publications, researchers can also follow changing social trends.
published materials provided more insight into the topic.
institutional ethnography (ie)
A research method developed by Dorothy Smith (1987) that emphasizes the importance of social, particularly institutional, factors in influencing individuals’ daily experiences. A major component of ie is a recognition that texts, or documents, can “produce and sustain standardized practices” and, through them, “relations of ruling.”
Analyzing Documents of Social Institutions
To see how bureaucratic documents “rule” the experiences of individuals who live and work in institutions, we will look at two ie studies that combine document analysis with participant observation to examine social life in nursing homes.
ex. McCloskey’s findings regarding the use of forms to selectively record aspects of experience are similar to Diamond’s. Her study, like Diamond’s, captures how documents of social institutions can contribute to “relations of ruling” and establish the dominance of bureaucracy in the nursing-home setting.
news media
News coverage can frame our understanding of our social world and can communicate the importance, or lack of importance, of issues, people, and events. Therefore, it is not surprising that researchers use material from the news media as a source of data.
frames
An approach to a topic or issue in which certain aspects are emphasized while other aspects are subjugated. When used in the mass media, frames have the power to influence public perceptions of an issue.
mapping
ltheide and Michalowski describe their method as both a “mapping” of “where the word and related references to fear occur throughout news reports” and a “tracking” of “changes in usage, particularly with different topics and issues, over time” (1999:477). Through this mapping and tracking, the researchers were able to identify the top three topics associated with fear in newspapers: children, crime, and schools. Tracking the use of the term over time revealed that fear was more prevalent in the news at the time of their study than it had been a few years earlier.
advertisements
advertisements have been a favourite source of data among researchers interested in gender roles and ideals. Ads often depict “cultural ideals to which the media and the marketplace would like us all to aspire … [to the] type of body and appearances marketed to … and often sought after by teenage girls or boys, or adult women and men”
how did ads add to gender displays?
compared to men, women were presented in a diminished capacity, objectified, over-feminized, and portrayed in insular terms. Goffman also noted that when women and men were posed together, the men were portrayed as central, strong, and dominant in comparison to the women.
fiction
While fictional representations, by definition, depart from reality, they still reflect certain aspects of our world and our experiences. Thus, as Hammersley and Atkinson (1983:131) suggest, researchers can analyze the “themes, images, [and] metaphors” used in fiction to become aware of and “sensitized to cultural themes pertaining to sex, gender, family, work, success, failure, commitments, health and illness, the law, crime, and social control.”
portrayal of airports in fictional children’s picture books and in fictional films for adults
They chose to compare these two media because they represent “some of the most generalized ways to offer anticipatory socialization to large numbers of people”
The books took three principal approaches to achieving the goal of teaching children about the airport experience
First, they introduced children to unfamiliar technologies.
Second, the books introduced children to the organization of airports.
Third, the books introduced children to the laws and control measures that govern people’s behaviour in airports.
rite of passage
A process of going from one social status to another that includes three stages:
separation from a former status and role,
transition between the former status and the new status,
and incorporation into the new status.
television
Television is a unique medium in that it brings together fictional and non-fictional representations of reality in various ways.
ethnographic content analysis
An unobtrusive method that entails analyzing documents (including photographs, television shows, and print media, among others) for their underlying meanings.
eulogy work
The conception and framing of self within a reality television show at the moment of symbolic death, at a contestant’s exit, or, more specifically, at the moment of transition and loss.
Analyzing Physical Objects
They went out twice a year to pick up items that people had dumped onto the side of the road. The group always spent some time comparing what they found and thinking about what it might tell them about their community. For example, they always picked up many “Tim’s cups” along the roadway. Most likely, this indicates the popularity of Tim Hortons among drivers in the community, but it may also suggest, among other possibilities, a correlation between drinking Tim Hortons’ coffee and throwing cups out of moving vehicles. Some parts of the road seemed to almost grow beer bottles, suggesting that these locations may be near sites where people come to drink beer in the woods.
two kinds of garbage that tell a great deal about contemporary society.
First, he came upon what he calls an “overwhelming, inundating surplus” of things that were “useful, functional, desirable, [and] many times unused and unmarred” (2006:16–17) that indicated the wastefulness and extreme consumerism that are characteristic of our culture.
Second, he found a type of curbside trash that is the “residue of significant life changes.” These include the thrown-out objects that result from events such as divorces and deaths. This sort of garbage includes “the material residue of shared meaning …: bronzed baby shoes, diplomas, wedding photos, ticket stubs, [and] old newspaper clippings.” Ferrell refers to these items as “material postmortems” (2006:19). This second type of trash indicates our desire to rid ourselves of unhappy reminders of the past after we go through a major change in our life.
Visual Sociology
A research approach in which the researcher uses images as data.
ex. tattoos
