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Qualitative Research
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Work-family matters in the workplace: the use of focus groups in a study of a UK social services department

Julia Brannen

Institute of Education, University of London, j.brannen{at}ioe.ac.uk

Rob Pattman

University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa

The article shows how talk and the expression of feelings about work-family matters in the workplace are generated within the research encounter and how they are shaped by the characteristics of the focus group. First, it outlines the study. Second, it discusses the conditions under which the focus group method was implemented in practice, thereby pointing to the limitations as well as the strengths of its application within an organizational case study. Third, it shows how focus groups are sites in which participants forge relations with one another. In particular it argues that participants can set discussion agendas and/or can act as accomplices in the sense that they are complicit in negotiating implicit understandings with one another which may drive the direction and/or tone of the discussion.

Key Words: focus group • group interaction • laughter • strategies of domination and complicity

Qualitative Research, Vol. 5, No. 4, 523-542 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1468794105059508
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This article has been cited by other articles:


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L. Peek and A. Fothergill
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Qualitative Research, February 1, 2009; 9(1): 31 - 59.
[Abstract] [PDF]