Overview
- Illuminates the challenges and possibilities involved in designing, carrying out and utilizing focus group research
- Provides a comprehensive blend of focus group methods, innovations and theories
- Recognizes the tensions between different research traditions, disciplinary emphases and funding climates
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About this book
This volume provides a critical approach to using focus groups, examining how focus groups have been utilized to research a diverse set of research questions covering a broad spectrum of substantive fields. The collection acknowledges the tensions between different research traditions, disciplinary emphases, funding climates, cultural, political, and ethical contexts, and the ever-changing policy backdrop. Contributors to this book encourage researchers to question and surmount disciplinary and terminological labels and disputes in order to capitalize on the full potential of focus groups, to illuminate the complex collaborative processes involved in forming, debating, contesting, and revising opinions; making decisions; and forging identities.
The four sections that comprise this collection address, respectively, using focus groups in novel contexts; employing focus groups in mixed methods research designs; innovations in generating focus group data; and new theoretical developments.
A New Era in Focus Group Research will be of interest to students and scholars across disciplines as well as focus group practitioners outside of academia.
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Keywords
Table of contents (19 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Using Focus Groups in New Settings
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Front Matter
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Capitalizing on Focus Groups in Mixed Methods Contexts
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Front Matter
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Theoretical Developments
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Front Matter
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Reviews
“This book is a cutting-edge contribution that every researcher should have.” (Kathy Charmaz, Sonoma State University, USA)
“This valuable collection of case studies [...] will help readers to identify the opportunities, and the challenges, that focus groups present and to assess when, where and how the method can most productively be used.” (Robert Dingwall, Consulting Sociologist, UK)
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Rosaline S. Barbour is a medical sociologist and is Emerita Professor at the Open University, UK. She runs a company offering bespoke workshops and training sessions on qualitative research methods.
David L. Morgan is Professor of Sociology at Portland State University, USA. He is widely known for his work on focus groups and has worked extensively on mixed methods.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: A New Era in Focus Group Research
Book Subtitle: Challenges, Innovation and Practice
Editors: Rosaline S. Barbour, David L. Morgan
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58614-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-58613-1Published: 01 September 2017
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-58614-8Published: 18 August 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 433
Number of Illustrations: 10 b/w illustrations
Topics: Research Methodology, Demography, Social Structure, Social Inequality