A methodology for cross-national comparative focus group research: illustrations from discussions about political protest

Maarten Johannes Bezouw (), Anastasia Garyfallou, Ioana-Elena Oană and Sebastien Rojon
Additional contact information
Maarten Johannes Bezouw: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Anastasia Garyfallou: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Ioana-Elena Oană: European University Institute
Sebastien Rojon: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2019, vol. 53, issue 6, No 3, 2719-2739

Abstract: Abstract We propose a methodology for comparative cross-national focus group research and illustrate how this methodology is useful for advancing our understanding of political protest. Focus group research allows researchers to study the collective process of meaning making and formation of intersubjective attitudes. This process has been shown to be relevant for how people discuss politics, and how in turn it could influence participation in politics. However, a systematic methodology for examining the influence of the historical, social, and political context in different countries has not been developed hitherto. In order to allow for comparisons between the formation of attitudes in different countries, we put forward several methodological decisions aimed at achieving standardization in cross-national focus group research design. Group composition, recruitment strategies, and moderation style are the key facets of focus group research that need to be standardized in order to make meaningful cross-national comparisons, but more practical considerations in implementing focus groups cross-nationally are also discussed. We illustrate and critically assess the proposed methodology based on data from an international comparative research project in which 80 focus groups were conducted in nine different countries in Europe and Latin America.

Keywords: Qualitative methods; Focus groups; Comparative politics; Protest; Political participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-019-00887-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:53:y:2019:i:6:d:10.1007_s11135-019-00887-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11135-019-00887-5

Access Statistics for this article

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology is currently edited by Vittorio Capecchi

More articles in Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().