Objectives

The objective of this work package is to organise a number of focus groups with members of transnational families who live in two or more of the countries included in our study. This enables us to analyse in more detail the causal mechanisms linking policies dealing with the Muslim population, on the one hand, to outcomes in terms of cultural distance and patterns of interethnic and interreligious interaction, on the other. This will allow...

Objectives

The objective of this work package is to organise a number of focus groups with members of transnational families who live in two or more of the countries included in our study. This enables us to analyse in more detail the causal mechanisms linking policies dealing with the Muslim population, on the one hand, to outcomes in terms of cultural distance and patterns of interethnic and interreligious interaction, on the other. This will allow us to set up a quasi-experimental design in which the background of the people is held constant, but the context in which they live varies systematically. The focus groups will bring together members of transnational families in one place. The families will be drawn and selected from addressing some of our survey correspondents. Our aim here is to bring members of specific families of migrants together who have settled in different European countries and allow them to compare their experiences by focussing on specific topics that arise from our survey findings, as well as the results of our work packages 1 and 2 on institutional and discursive opportunity structures.

Description of work

We propose to use media contents as stimuli for discussion over the key issues over cultural interactions, that have arisen from the survey data analysis (work package 4). This follows in the tradition of focus group research within communications research, where news materials have proven an important way of gaining access to the lived worlds of people by focussing their attention on specific issues or problems thereby facilitating group discussion and negotiation. News materials will be drawn from work package 2.

The focus groups will bring together members of transnational families in one place. The families will be drawn and selected from addressing some of our survey correspondents. We plan to conduct 12 focus groups (each focus group composed of approximately six people): four Turkish family groups, four Moroccan family groups (since these are the two groups with the widest coverage also in the survey), two Pakistani family groups, and two former Yugoslav Muslim family groups. Given the potential importance of gender differences for our topic, and following best practice for focus groups, we propose to separate men and women. If men and women are mixed in groups, men tend to dominate discussions. If we find generational differences to be especially important in the survey, then we may also decide to increase numbers and separate also by 1st/2nd generation. At present however, we consider that generational differences may be adequately explored within groups.

Each group session will be led by a trained moderator of similar ethnic origin to the group and groups will be held in ‘homeland’ language. Groups will be asked by the moderators to focus on similar topics, thus facilitating comparison of their discussions. Permission will be asked to record and where possible video-record the sessions. Part of the task of the moderator will be to provide an English translation transcript of the group discussion. National teams will then provide a report on their focus group findings and a special meeting will be held to examine the comparative findings across the groups of different national and ethnic origin.

We are proposing a quasi-experimental design in which the background of the people is held constant, but the context in which they live varies systematically. EURISLAM partner UNIVBRIS (country) coordinates this work package.