Successful Communicative Focus Groups With Teenagers and Young People

Abstract

The concept of the mirage of upward mobility, identified as one of the causes of gender violence, has been analyzed in depth through different communicative fieldwork techniques that were designed dialogically. The development of each of these techniques has been crucial to identifying the roots of the phenomenon. This article addresses the implementation of communicative focus groups comprising adolescent girls and young people (aged 14-18 and 18-25) by highlighting different parts of the research process: (a) how the groups were configured and how the participants were selected, (b) the identification of preexisting barriers to discussing the issue and the different possible reactions, (c) how evidence from the scientific community was introduced to the groups, and (d) how the barriers to identifying the mirage of upward mobility can be overcome through dialogue within the focus groups.