QUICK GUIDE 4 - KEY QUALITATIVE METHODS QUICK GUIDE 4 - KEY QUALITATIVE METHODS Focus group discussions Focus group discussions are an effective method to gather a range of perspectives that exist within a community or subgroup. Because they typically seek to illuminate group opinion, they are useful when needing to explore and analyse group responses to a topic of common concern (such as a shared experience of being stateless or at risk of statelessness). Meeting with groups of affected individuals is useful for the efficient collection of numerous views simultaneously, as well as to observe the exchanges between and among different participants. Focus group discussions are inappropriate for sensitive topics, particularly those involving detailed personal accounts. For this reason, it is good to follow up focus group discussions with individual or small-group interviews (please see information on semi-structured interviews below). It is advisable to form focus group discussion groups on the basis of shared characteristics such as gender, age, ethnicity, formerly stateless etc. as this minimizes or eliminates at least some significant differences which can impact how a person in the focus group communicates his or her experiences of statelessness or risk of statelessness. Further, in some contexts, it will be particularly important to separate groups by age and gender, as cultural and social customs could, for example, discourage women or younger people from speaking up in a mixed group context. Please note that it is important to proceed with a degree of caution when it comes to undertaking data collection activities with children (i.e., persons under the age of 18 years). Issues concerning consent and confidentiality must be treated with utmost care. All actions concerning children shall be guided by the principle of the “best interests of the child”. The principle applies to all children, including stateless children. 38 U N H C R > R E S E A R C H I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S - Q U I C K G U I D E S Particular care must be taken with respect to seeking consent for participation from children. In most situations, consent can and should be obtained from the child’s parent, family member with parental responsibility, or legal customary caregiver. In the case of unaccompanied or separate children, consent by the child may be appropriate provided that he/she has the capacity to understand the process and its ensuing rights and obligations. There is also a need for sampling in qualitative research, just as there is in quantitative research, although the formal criteria are not as strict. The persons to be interviewed need to be identified and they should be as representative as possible of the larger group. For example, if a group of ten young stateless men are interviewed in a focus group, they should to some extent represent the range of young stateless men in the community that is investigated (e.g., in terms of age, education and occupation). The overall size of the community that is being interviewed does not affect the size of the focus group. However, if the total population of the community is large (e.g., more than 2000 people) consider holding multiple focus group discussions rather than increasing the size of just one or two focus group discussions. One of the key roles of the facilitator is to ensure that all of the group members get heard and prevent a few voices from dominating the discussion. Focus group discussions should be structured around a few key questions that can adequately be covered in the time allotted. Each group should ideally have no more than 10 – 15 people with one facilitator and one note-taker, together with an interpreter if needed. Wherever possible, it is useful to have local civil society partners, with whom the community is familiar, undertake or assist with the facilitation of the focus group discussion. U N H C R > R E S E A R C H I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S - Q U I C K G U I D E S 39