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Focus Groups
Why focus groups?
Generally, focus groups are conducted as series of regional one-day conferences held in different locales and involving different constituencies. There are two basic types of focus groups: marketing and social-scientific. The focus groups conducted in the framework of this project fall into the latter category. The purpose of the roundtable discussions which constitute the core of social-scientific focus groups is to identify the most pressing needs of the constituencies represented in the focus groups and to explore ways in which the identified needs can be met. Because the identification of needs depends on the quality of the information provided by focus group participants, it is crucial that participants express their thoughts freely. In other words, the immediate purpose of the focus group is served to the extent that it reveals what participants actually think, as opposed to what they think those conducting and/or sponsoring the research want them to think.
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Beyond the rich qualitative data they generate, focus groups offer two significant advantages over other research methodologies for identifying the needs of marginalized populations :
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- First, focus groups are intelligible to their participants, who need not have a background in research to know how to participate in a constructive dialogue.
- Second, by providing the security of a peer group, focus groups reduce the
effects of power differentials between participants and researchers.
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Similar needs assessments have been foreseen for some of Macedonia’s neighbours. Listed in order based on the apparent potential for such activities to generate positive results, the candidates for inclusion in a regional initiative designed to increase Romani integration into the societies in which they live might include: |
How the focus groups were conducted
The individual focus groups generally consisted of 10 to 15 persons, and two focus groups each were organized around the core areas of education, civil rights, and employment. The exceptions to this generalization were two of the four focus groups on health, where the Project Team judged it important to meet separately with members of Romani communities on the one hand and with healthcare professionals serving those communities on the other.
The reason for organizing more than a single focus group in each core area was to ensure the geographical representativeness of the stakeholder population participating in the needs assessment, thus ensuring that the results of the focus group meetings would be useful for the design of state-wide policy initiatives aimed at increasing Roms’ level of integration in the Republic of Macedonia as a whole.
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- Skopje and Kumanovo were chosen as meeting sites for the focus groups on education on the basis of the characteristics of the educational opportunities available to Roms in the cities in question. At one extreme is Skopje, where four primary schools offer instruction in the Romani language. Kumanovo represents another extreme, as contention between ethnic Albanian and ethnic Macedonian communities has led to a particularly high degree of neglect of Roms’ educational needs in that city.
- In similar fashion to the meeting sites for the focus groups on education, Skopje and Štip were chosen for the focus groups on health because the two cities present the ends of a continuum in attention to Roms’ healthcare needs. Whereas domestic and international initiatives have focused on the Romani population of Skopje (and particularly on the municipality of Šuto Orizari), by virtue of its location in Eastern Macedonia the city of Štip as a whole has received considerably less attention, with Roms in Štip and the surrounding region often left to their own devices.
- Tetovo and Štip represent extremes in the Republic of Macedonia in respect for Roms' civil rights on the part of state authorities. Whereas reports of police mistreatment of Roms are relatively unusual in Tetovo (a fact made more noteworthy by the fact that some of the heaviest fighting in the armed conflict of 2001 took place in and around this West Macedonian city), police beatings seem to occur with considerably greater frequency in Eastern Macedonia, where the population is more homogeneously ethnic Macedonian.
- In the West Macedonian city of Gostivar, Roms practice a wide range of occupations and there is a substantial Romani middle class residing in the city centre. In Bitola, on the other hand, few Roms have regular employment and much of the Romani population lives in extremely poor, unsanitary conditions. Approximating best- and worse-case scenarios from the standpoint of employment of the Romani population, Gostivar and Bitola were chosen as the sites for the focus groups on employment.
- Skopje was chosen as the meeting site for the focus group on Romani women and girls both for the capital’s relatively central location and for the numerical concentration of Roms there. Participants were also invited from other regions of Macedonia
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In addition to taking regional variations into account, the selection of focus group participants was conducted in such a way as to ensure demographic representativeness, taking into account gender, age group, socio-economic status, and religion, as well as citizenship status. Demographic representativeness is particularly important given the broad range of variation within Macedonia’s Romani population. Beyond the predictable variation in gender and age categories, the gamut of Romani existence in Macedonia runs from longstanding resident non-citizens living in tents (e.g., on the outskirts of Gostivar), through a substantial middle class (e.g., in the centre of Gostivar), to rich entrepreneurs (e.g., in Šuto Orizari).
In addition to the ten focus groups organized around the four core areas, a further focus group meeting was held to address the position of Romani women and girls. Drawing on the proceedings of the eight focus groups with Romani participants, the discussion on the female Romani population was held relatively late in project implementation in order to allow reflection on the findings of the meetings which preceded it. Additionally, women in various age categories comprised approximately half of the participants in the other focus groups.
For detailed information on each of the focus groups, please consult the full report.
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