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Using Focus Groups to Study the Process of (de)Politicization

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A New Era in Focus Group Research

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown that most citizens consider themselves politically unsophisticated and that they perceive politics as being far removed from daily life. As a consequence they explicitly avoid discussing politics in public. It proved possible, however, to invite participants to discuss political issues, within the context of European Integration. This chapter reports on a series of focus group discussion designed as an experiment, in which a group of strangers meet and discuss, quite freely, issues that they all understand as being political. The data generated through this series of discussions provide the raw material for a recently published book: Citizen’s Reactions to European Integration Compared (Duchesne et al., Citizens’ Reactions to European Integration Compared: Overlooking Europe, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). This chapter focuses on the methodology and the ways in which the focus group method was adapted and developed in order to address the specificity of political objects.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter draws on work that I did a couple of years ago with Florence Haegel. See the many references to our common publications in the text.

  2. 2.

    There were three main differences between the experimental study and this one, on top of the comparison and the number of groups: the topic then – Europe instead of delinquency; the location – the French groups were convened in rooms where Sciences Po, a French elite school for higher education, was highly visible which was not the case for the preliminary study; and the recruitment: the first time, we recruited them though a job centre while the second time, we advertised widely and looked for them directly.

  3. 3.

    The groups were convened in 2006. A couple of qualitative studies at the time showed how remote the EU was for people. P. Lehingue even suggested that producing opinions on European questions requires a specific political sophistication, a squared one (Gaxie et al. 2011: ch.8).

  4. 4.

    In reference to Haskier’s chapter in this book, what happened in these groups is probably not recognisable to participants’ everyday contexts. On the contrary, the situational context of these focus groups is meant to activate the processes that prevent politicization to happen in everyday contexts.

  5. 5.

    What is referred to in French as objective and subjective competence, the first (equivalent to political sophistication) being mostly knowledge and understanding of political actors, institutions, rules, issues, etc. and the second, confidence in her/his own authority and capacity to have a say (Bourdieu 1977; Gaxie 1978)

  6. 6.

    In reference to William Gamson’s book who contributed to (re)introduce focus groups in sociology and political science (Gamson 1992).

  7. 7.

    The advantages of passive citizenship, that might also be considered a sign of satisfaction on the part of citizens, have long been debated. Representation makes democracy work with limited citizens’ involvement. See for instance earlier work of Dahl (Dahl 2006; Dahl 1989)

  8. 8.

    As confirmed by the discrepancy between the recurrent support for democracy expressed in survey and the not less recurrent and even growing disgust for politics (Hay 2009).

  9. 9.

    I writing these lines when France experiences a version of the Occupy movement, the Nuits debouts, which illustrates dramatically how political engagement begins with learning (and here possibly reinventing) political discussion. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/nuit-debout-protesters-occupy-french-cities-in-a-revolutionary-call-for-change.

  10. 10.

    Although some experimental survey design could help (Sniderman and Grob 1996).

  11. 11.

    The points I shall make in this section indeed follows most of Morgan suggestions made in this 1995 article. This is no wonder as we made intensive use of this paper when we designed our focus groups.

  12. 12.

    Nor because they take a special interest in social science, as this would not make then representative either of the ‘average’ citizens.

  13. 13.

    That was Gamson’s strategy and he notes that interviewees tend to invite those who they reckon would be most competent and who happened to be the most educated and/or belong to the highest social groups in their acquaintance.

  14. 14.

    A similar experience than interviewing people you know (Bourdieu 1993).

  15. 15.

    Let’s note that ethical issue are generally speaking less considered in France that in the UK or the US, which might explain that we decided to go that way. It seems however to be the right decision for our purpose.

  16. 16.

    In the Oxford case, we had to get participants to read and fill forms that acknowledge that the discussion could become harsh and where they confirm they would ask for help if they feel disturbed by it. This was neither required in Paris nor in Brussels.

  17. 17.

    We followed Morgan’s advice and run two groups of each. This turned out particularly useful for the comparison. Because of the many accidents that characterize recruitment – notably people who happen to be really different from what they look on paper on the one hand and those who don’t show up on the day of the event on the other hand –, we ended up with working class, employees and executive of different sorts. Once we had completed the series, we organized our groups in two sets: in the first one, we put the twelve groups that distributed the more evenly in the three countries along the social spectrum (Garcia and Van Ingelgom 2010) – and the political spectrum for militants. National comparison relies on this first series only.

  18. 18.

    We did some tests groups in the three countries beforehand that confirmed than more than one question was needed and helped phrasing them.

  19. 19.

    Participants were told from the beginning that if they did not agree with what someone was saying, instead of interrupting, they could let the moderator know. She would then draw a ‘flash’ on the card and come back to it later. The first time a participant asked for a flash, the moderator thanked her/her, indicated that she was in pleased. This indeed helped making disagreement known.

  20. 20.

    Indeed, most of the publications that resulted from our focus groups analysis address the topic itself (Duchesne et al. 2000; Duchesne et al. 2013; Van Ingelgom 2014).

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Acknowledgements

I’m very much indebted to Florence Haegel, with whom I worked for many years and with whom I experimented with regard to this focus group design; as well as Elizabeth Frazer and Virginie Van Ingelgom, co-authors of the book Citizens reactions to European integration compared: Overlooking Europe. I’m also grateful to Claire Dupuy, with whom I continue to revisit this data. Special thanks to Virginie who commented on the first version of this chapter, as well as this’ volume editors, and more particularly Rose Barbour who turned it into readable English.

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  1. CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research), Centre Emile Durkheim, Sciences Po Bordeaux, Domaine universitaire, Cedex, France

    Sophie Duchesne

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  1. Sophie Duchesne
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Correspondence to Sophie Duchesne .

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  1. WELS, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

    Rosaline S. Barbour

  2. Portland State University, Portland, USA

    David L. Morgan

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Duchesne, S. (2017). Using Focus Groups to Study the Process of (de)Politicization. In: Barbour, R., Morgan, D. (eds) A New Era in Focus Group Research. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58614-8_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58614-8_17

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