Elsevier

Women's Studies International Forum

Volume 21, Issue 1, January–February 1998, Pages 111-125
Women's Studies International Forum

FEMINIST RESEARCH
Focus groups in feminist research: Power, interaction, and the co-construction of meaning

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(97)00080-0Get rights and content

Abstract

Despite a theoretical emphasis on understanding the person-in-context, individualistic research methods have dominated feminist psychology, and feminist research more generally. I suggest the need for more socially situated methods, and argue that group interviews, or focus groups, are of particular value in conducting, and developing, feminist research. The historical development of focus groups is briefly outlined and examples provided of their use in contemporary feminist research projects. I demonstrate that the particular benefits of focus groups include: addressing feminist ethical concerns about power and the imposition of meaning; generating high quality, interactive data; and offering the possibility of theoretical advances regarding the co-construction of meaning between people. The potential for future development of focus group theory and methodology in feminist research is argued, and illustrated, in particular, with reference to the dynamic negotiation of meaning in specific social contexts.

Section snippets

Focus groups: history and current status

As researchers point out, “what is known as a focus group today takes many different forms” (Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990, p. 9), but centrally it involves group discussions in which participants focus collectively upon a topic selected by the researcher and presented to them in the form of a film, a collection of advertisements, or a vignette to discuss, a “game” to play, or simply a particular set of questions. The groups (rarely more than 12 people at a time, and more commonly 6 to 8) can

Feminist research ethics and focus groups: issues of power and control in qualitative research

Feminist social scientists (e.g., Finch 1984, Oakley 1981) have expressed many concerns about the ethical issues involved in one-to-one interviewing, particularly in relation to the potentially exploitative nature of the interaction in which the researcher controls the proceedings, regulates the conversation, reveals minimal personal information, and imposes her own framework of meaning upon participants (although they have also identified limits on the researcher’s power due to the constraints

Obtaining high quality, interactive data: the value of focus groups for feminist research

The relative power possessed by research participants at the data collection stage of focus groups, compared with interviews, is not simply an ethical issue. It also improves the quality of the data. As Jenny Kitzinger (1994) argues, group work ensures that priority is given to the respondents’ hierarchy of importance, their language and concepts, their frameworks for understanding the world. “In fact, listening to discussions between participants gives the researcher time to acclimatise to,

Beyond individualism: the co-construction of realities in the social context of the focus group

Underlying concerns about “bias” and “contamination” is the assumption that the individual is the appropriate unit of analysis, and that her “real” or “underlying” views (conceptualised as the views she would express “in private”) represent the “purest” form of data. For these researchers, the challenge in any kind of qualitative data collection is to overcome social desirability, self-presentation, self-deception, and, of course, the individual’s presumed reticence in talking openly about

References (71)

  • Gill Green et al.

    “Who wears the trousers?” Sexual harassment in research settings

    Women’s Studies International Forum

    (1993)
  • Jane Ribbens

    Interviewing—An “unnatural situation”?

    Women’s Studies International Forum

    (1989)
  • Carol E. Barringer

    Speaking of incestIt’s not enough to say the word

    Feminism & Psychology

    (1992)
  • Mary Belenky et al.

    Women’s ways of knowingThe development of self, voice and mind

    (1986)
  • Michael Billig

    Talking of the royal family

    (1992)
  • E. Bogardus

    The group interview

    Journal of Applied Sociology

    (1926)
  • Burt, Sandra, & Code, Lorraine. (1995). Preface. In Sandra Burt & Lorraine Code (Eds.), Changing methods: Feminists...
  • Phyllis Chesler

    Women and madness

    (1972)
  • June Crawford et al.

    Women’s sex talk and men’s sex talkDifferent worlds

    Feminism & Psychology

    (1994)
  • J.D. Denning et al.

    Using the focus group in assessing training needsEmpowering child welfare workers

    Child Welfare League of America

    (1993)
  • Martyn Denscombe

    Explorations in group interviewsAn evaluation of a reflexive and partisan approach

    British Educational Research Journal

    (1995)
  • Derek Edwards et al.

    Discursive psychology

    (1992)
  • Oliva M. Espin

    “Race,” racism and sexuality in the life narrative of immigrant women

    Feminism & Psychology

    (1995)
  • Lynn Farley

    Sexual shakedownThe sexual harassment of women on the job

    (1978)
  • Finch, Janet. (1984). “It’s great to have someone to talk to”: The ethics and politics of interviewing women. In Colin...
  • Michelle Fine

    Disruptive voicesThe possibilities of feminist research

    (1992)
  • Fine, Michelle, & Addelston, Judi. (1996). Containing questions of gender and power: The discursive limits of “sameness...
  • Fine, Michelle, & Gordon, Susan Merle. (1989). Feminist transformations of/despite psychology. In Mary Crawford &...
  • Fontana, Andrea, & Frey, James H. (1994). Interviewing: The art of science. In Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln...
  • Elizabeth Frazer

    Teenage girls talking about class

    Sociology

    (1988)
  • Kenneth Gergen

    The Social Constructionist Movement in modern psychology

    American Psychologist

    (1985)
  • Gergen, Kenneth. (1987). Toward self as relationship. In Krysia Yardley & Terry Honess (Eds.), Self and identity:...
  • Carol Gilligan

    In a different voicePsychological theory and women’s development

    (1982)
  • Griffin, Christine. (1986). Qualitative methods and female experience: Young women from school to the job market. In...
  • A.E. Goldman

    The group depth interview

    Journal of Marketing

    (1962)
  • Karen Harrison et al.

    Focused group discussionA “quality” method for health research?

    Health Psychology Update

    (1995)
  • Karen Henwood et al.

    Remaking the linkQualitative research and feminist standpoint theory

    Feminism & Psychology

    (1995)
  • Carrie M.H. Herbert

    Talking of silenceThe sexual harassment of schoolgirls

    (1989)
  • Judith V. Jordan et al.

    Women’s growth in connectionWritings from the Stone Center

    (1991)
  • M.E. Khan et al.

    Focus groups in tropic diseases research

    Health Policy and Planning

    (1992)
  • Elizabeth Arveda Kissling

    Bleeding out loudCommunication about menstruation

    Feminism & Psychology

    (1996)
  • Kitzinger, Celia. (1992). The individuated self concept: A critical analysis of social constructionist writing on...
  • Jenny Kitzinger

    Audience understandings of AIDS media messagesA discussion of methods

    Sociology of Health and Illness

    (1990)
  • Jenny Kitzinger

    The methodology of focus groupsThe importance of interaction between research participants

    Sociology of Health and Illness

    (1994)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text