To be able to study the effects of educational policies implemented in East Jerusalem, whether by the Israeli Ministry of Education or the Palestinian Ministry of Education or by schools themselves without recourse to official bodies, the researcher chose to conduct several focus
71 groups with both teachers and parents. The idea was to explore what influences parents to choose a particular type of education that they want their children to receive. The researcher was seeking to understand if parents were satisfied with their children’s education, to understand their views on the education sector in East Jerusalem and also to identify the degree to which they held Israel or Israeli policy responsible for the limited educational services in the city. The focus groups held with the teachers were meant to capture their experiences, both as people living in Jerusalem and working in the education system. It was necessary to explore what problems they faced in their work and how they dealt with them. Answers to these questions would provide the researcher with an insider’s view of the education system in East Jerusalem.
The researcher conducted fifteen focus groups, with parents and teachers from the four different education systems in East Jerusalem (Awqaf, private, UNRWA, municipal). In the municipal system, three focus groups with teachers were held, of which one was an informal focus group which took place in the teachers’ room during break time. In addition to three parents focus groups held in community centres. For schools under the Awqaf system, two focus groups were held with parents and two with teachers. For schools under the private system, two focus groups were held with parents and three with teachers. All the focus groups were conducted in Arabic and were recorded with the consent of the participants. The responses were then transcribed and translated into English.
Focus groups were chosen for this research because they help the researcher capture people’s thoughts and perspectives in a way similar to their natural environment. People in a focus group tend to influence each other, just as in real life people are influenced by their friends, neighbours and other family members (Krueger, 1994). They usually listen to other people’s advice before making their decisions, as proved to be the case when they were choosing which school to send their children to. The interaction between research participants in a focus group is important, because it involves participants learning from each other and considering or re-evaluating their own understanding and experiences, just as in other situations in life. Bryman (2004) explains that the use of a focus group gives the researcher the opportunity to study the ways in which individuals collectively make sense of a phenomena and construct meanings around it. He explains that the process of coming to terms with social phenomena is not undertaken by
71 individuals in isolation from each-other. Therefore, in this sense, focus groups reflect the process through which meaning is constructed in everyday life and to that extent can be regarded as more naturalistic, rather than a structured individual interview.
Another reason for using this method is that it has flexibility, which allows the researcher to explore unanticipated issues, which is not possible within structured questioning sequences (Krueger, 1994). The researcher is also in a better position to know if the respondents understood the questions being asked and then she can probe and ask more questions to explore the topic further. She can also explain the question to participants and this increases the validity of the answers. Focus groups are known to have high face validity, meaning that the technique is easily understood and the data is easily presented with quotes from the participants, obtained when they give their views on the topic. Compared to other research methods focus groups provide rich in depth data in a shorter period of time, the researcher can also increase the sample size without any dramatic increase on the research time.
Some of the key issues for ensuring the success of focus groups are: the selection of the participants, the number of participants in each group and the number of focus groups needed to obtain satisfactory results (Krueger, 1994). Ideally, each group should consist of six to eight participants, as this number ensures a flowing discussion and allows the researcher to witness a diversity of perspectives (Krueger, 1994). As Bryman (2004) explains, a focus group must be small enough for everyone to have an opportunity to share insights and yet large enough to provide a diversity of perceptions. If the group is too large, i.e. consisting of ten or more participants, the moderator (researcher) may have trouble controlling the session and the participants may feel that they are unable to express themselves within the time limit, also some members of the group may end up just talking to the people sitting next to them and the session then becomes fragmented. On the other hand, small groups consisting of four or fewer participants, have a smaller pool of opinions (Krueger, 1994). However, it is not always possible to have the ideal number in a focus group. In the research for this study, the numbers of participants in a particular focus group varied between ten and three per group. The reason was that school gatekeepers, such as school principals and heads of parents’ committees were the ones responsible for gathering the groups of teachers or parents together and therefore the
72 researcher was restricted in the number of the participants. In some groups, the number of participants was intended to be six, but some teachers had other engagements, which meant that they could not attend, so the focus group ended up with only three or four participants.
Each one of the four educational systems in East Jerusalem was studied alone with a set of interviews and focus groups. The choice of including parents of students who are studying under the same education system was to ensure that each focus group is composed of homogeneous like-minded individuals from the same economic and cultural background and knowledge and experience with the given topic. Krueger (1994:59) explains that when participants perceive each-other as fundamentally similar, they can spend less time explaining themselves to each other and more time discussing the issue. The researcher’s choice of working with homogenous groups, also lies in the fact that several social researchers have mentioned that people tend to disclose more to those whom they perceive more similar to them than to those who differ from them (Litosseliti, 2003, Morgan, 1988, Kreuger, 1994).
From each school system, several schools were chosen randomly and from each of these randomly chosen schools the principal assigned teachers to join the group (usually the ones available and willing to join). As for parents’ focus groups, the parents chosen for the focus groups were members of the parents’ committees. The purpose of choosing members of parents’ committees was due to the fact that they are active members in the school, who are involved and are aware of the school problems.
Positivists might doubt the efficiency of this qualitative method as it lacks external validity. However, several social scientists have defended this method (see Krueger, 1994, Bryman 2004, Litosseliti, 2003). They have explained that the results of focus groups might not be generalisable or representative, but can be indicative, illustrating particular social phenomenon. Krueger (1994:87) further explains: “The intent of focus groups is not to infer, but to understand, not to generalise but to determine the range, not to make statements about the population but to provide insights about how people perceive a situation”.
As for the number of focus groups for including in this study, there are several factors the researcher had to take into consideration. In focus group research there is a need for holding
73 more than one focus group, with different groups of people working on the same topic, because the outcome of one single session is not enough to generate comparative and in depth data around the topic (Litosseliti, 2003). Krueger (1994) explains that solo focus groups are risky because occasionally the group may encounter problems that affect the data being generated, such as cold groups with quiet reluctant participants, or sometimes one participant may dominate the session, or in some cases an accidental remark may cause chaos in the session. Therefore, the researcher conducted several focus groups with participants from the different school systems to compare results.
All the focus groups were held in schools and community centres and they lasted between one and two hours. The sessions were sound recorded after obtaining the consent of the participants. Recording ensured the accuracy of data collection and it is much easier for the researcher to concentrate on the flow of ideas in the session than to take notes of what people are saying. The researcher maintained the group’s focus, ensured that key questions are discussed and that the discussion is developing and participants do not shift away from the topic or dominate the session. The researcher held the whole series of focus groups. This proves very important as it reduces the risk of manipulation and bias in the data produced. Also since the researcher is the moderator and the analyser of the data this has increased the coherence across the different stages of the research.
More importantly the researcher is aware of moderating pitfalls in focus groups which include the danger of leading participants and encouraging them to respond to the researcher’s prejudices. Therefore, the researcher took the role of a listener in the discussion and only interfered when certain participants dominated the discussion or were too shy and reluctant to participate or if the discussion drifted away from the research topic. To reduce detours in the session the researcher has followed a guide so the sessions were moderately structured.
The funnel approach was used in designing the interview guide for the moderately structured focus group, moving from the broader to the more specific (Kruger,1994:53). In this approach the researcher starts with one or two broad open-ended questions and then introduces three or four general topics, reaching to several specific questions.
74 Finally, to ensure that the participants are not harmed by this research, the researcher followed the ethical code of the British Sociological Association (2002). At the beginning of each interview or focus group’s session, the research participants were informed of the research topic, how the data will be used, why this research is being conducted and how their anonymity will be protected. Their permission was taken to record the sessions and they were informed that the purpose of the recording was to make it easier later in the process of data analysis. They were also informed that their names will be changed in the reports and other publications. Before the focus groups sessions started, the participants were informed of their absolute freedom to talk and that they were not pressured to speak, they were not expected to reach a consensus or to provide answers and that they can decide how much to disclose to the group. They were reminded of their full freedom to withdraw from the session any time and for any or no reason.