Adapting and Adjusting Focus Groups: Considerations of Participants and Contexts in Juvenile Justice Facilities

• In Event: Contemporary Engagements in Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

There has been little consideration of focus groups within youth detention centers, given the complexities of accessing and interacting with these students, and despite the acknowledgements of how focus groups should be tailored for various groups, there has been limited engagement with how researchers might explore overlapping research goals across different participant populations through focus groups—particularly highly transient and at-risk populations. Through a multi-year project situated within youth detention centers across the United States, this paper works to take up these important considerations with the guiding research questions,
1. How might focus groups guided by the same research purposes meaningfully engage with specific participant groups through different questions and/or interactions?
2. How do these adjustments affect the research process?

Authors

• Stephanie Anne Shelton, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Kristine Jolivette, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Sara Sanders, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Olivia R. Hester, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• June L. Preast, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Nicole Prewitt, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Wenchao Ma, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Kimberly Odom, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author