scholarly journals Voicing the Less Heard: A Review of Focus Group Methodology: Principles and Practice

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derya Kulavuz-Onal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
Cross Cultural Research ◽  
Focus Group Methodology ◽  
Virtual Focus Groups ◽  
Educational Sciences

Focus Group Methodology: Principles and Practice is a powerful text in not only equipping novice researchers with all the stages of designing a focus group, but also facilitating their understanding of the philosophies and in-depth principles of focus group methodology. Although the text seems to have specifically aimed at researchers in health and social sciences, beginning qualitative researchers in other fields, such as educational sciences, can also gain valuable insights. The text also provides detailed accounts of previous research where focus groups have been used as well as an intensive discussion of more specific topics such as focus groups with vulnerable groups, focus groups in cross-cultural research, and virtual focus groups.

Who owns 'culture'?1

1996 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Thomas Lawson ◽  
Robert N. McCauley
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Early Childhood Development ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Childhood Development ◽  
Cross Cultural Study ◽  
Fieldwork Experience ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cross Cultural Research ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractNo one owns the concept 'culture'. Anthropology's long-standing proprietary claim on the concept rests on three sorts of contentions - none of which are convincing. Anthropology's overwhelmingly interpretive approaches to cultural materials have led to a preoccupation with the details of cultural materials at the expense of formulating explanatory theories. This has, among other things, rendered fieldwork experience sufficient for professional credentials. However, if the details are all that matter, then comparative and cross-cultural research, as well as most of the social sciences, make no sense. Contrary to this view, it is proposed here that theories reveal which details matter. Cognitive accounts of the sort we advanced in Rethinking Religion (1990) offer a firm theoretical basis for cross-cultural study of religious materials. Other types of research concerning non-human primates, early childhood development, and various social and cognitive impairments also offer insight into culture (without relying on fieldwork studies).

Cross-cultural gerontology research methods: challenges and solutions

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
IRIS CHI
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Open Communication ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cross Cultural Research ◽  
Multicultural Research ◽  
Different Cultures

ABSTRACTCross-cultural research in the behavioural and social sciences uses data from several societies or distinct cultural groups to describe the diversity of human behaviour and test hypotheses about behaviour and culture. This paper reviews the historical development and current state of cross-cultural research in the social sciences and gerontology. Cross-cultural research in gerontology is important because the social processes of ageing vary. It aims to distinguish universal from culturally-specific processes and determine how cultural factors influence individual and population ageing. It has to overcome many challenges: how to design an equivalent and unbiased study, how to access different cultures, how to contextualise these cultures, and how to ensure that questions are meaningful for different cultures. Appropriate strategies include using an international multicultural research team, becoming familiar with the local culture, maintaining good relationships with community leaders, studying only those aspects of behaviour that are functionally equivalent while avoiding the idiosyncratic, using appropriate measures, and encouraging equal partnership and open communication among colleagues. Cross-cultural research has been growing and has become a basis for globally-relevant social gerontology. To highlight the complexity of cross-cultural research and lessons learnt from such research experience, this paper describes an example study of long-term care that involved researchers from more than 30 countries and from many disciplines.

scholarly journals Polycultural Phenomenology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Timoschuk
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Life World ◽  
Speculative Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
Cross Cultural Research ◽  
Pure Experience ◽  
Radical Intellectual ◽  
Intersubjective Field

The paper deals with the issue of the phenomenological foundations of polyculturalism on the basis of the categories of the following concepts: multi-layer being, concretization, intentionality, life world, and epoché. A comparison of phenomenology with eastern psychotechnics allows us to stress the importance of Husserl’s break with the tradition of speculative philosophy. Phenomenology is a pure experience of selfobservation. Such a radical intellectual position is similar to that of yoga and Buddhism which is also built after breaking with past traditions. They all reformat the cultural shell in order to reset and justify the experience of transcendental meditation. The achievement of the phenomenology lies not only in its reformist direction in philosophy, but also in that it solves the problem of overcoming the crisis of social sciences in Europe due to breaking the deadlock of speculative philosophy and positivism. Its universal value is in the development of cross-cultural research methodology, with the help of which such systems as Vedanta, yoga, Buddhism and phenomenology itself can be in a single intersubjective field. Keywords: phenomenology of culture, phenomenology of education, multiculturalism, Husserl, life world.

scholarly journals The importance of open research practices to empirical research in the evolutionary social sciences

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam R Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Data Archiving ◽  
Open Research ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
Code Sharing ◽  
Cross Cultural Research ◽  
Evolutionary Studies ◽  
Open Materials

Open research practices should be a staple of evolutionary studies of the human experience. I focus on three open research practices --- data archiving, code sharing, and open materials. I reiterate their benefits for comparative cross-cultural research in the evolutionary social sciences. I also highlight some of the challenges researchers might face in their implementation, and provide pointers to possible solutions. Finally, I list elements of open research that merit greater discussion in this area of research.

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