Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice

by Jenny Kitzinger (editor), Rosaline S. Barbour (Editor)

This book critically examines the potential of, and suggests ways forward in, harnessing a versatile and powerful method of research - focus groups. The book challenges some of the emerging orthodoxies and presents accessible, insightful and reflective discussions about the issues around focus group work. The contributors, an impressive group of experienced researchers from a range of disciplines and traditions, discuss different ways of designing, conducting and analyzing focus group research. They examine sampling strategies; the implications of combining focus groups with other methods; accessing views of `minority′ groups; their contribution to participatory or feminist research; use of software packages; discourse anal

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 2 out of 5]

There might be a little bit of mismatch between what I want (how do you do a focus group?) and what this book is about. Barbaour and Kitzinger have collected quite the group of British academics, and each one tells a little story about how they used focus groups in their research. The book assures us again and again that focus groups are great for researchers looking at marginalized groups, anxious to capture issues in the words of the community rather than sterile language of academia, and feminist consciousness raisers, not just consumer researchers seeking the best shade of pistachio for their new product. I believe all that, but I still have no clue how to do focus groups, or what to do with the data to turn it into research.