Introduction - Jenny Kitzinger and Rosaline S Barbour
The Challenge and Promise of Focus Groups
The Impact of Context on Data - Judith Green and Laura Hart
Combining Focus Groups and Interviews - Lynn Michell
Telling How it Is; Telling How it Feels
Are Focus Groups Suitable for `Sensitive' Topics? - Clare Farquhar with Rita Das
How Useful Are Focus Groups in Feminist Research? - Sue Wilkinson
Do Focus Groups Facilitate Meaningful Participation in Social Research? - Rachel Baker and Rachel Hinton
How Useful Are Focus Groups for Obtaining the Views of Minority Groups? - Lai-Fong Chui and Deborah Knight
Are Focus Groups an Appropriate Tool for Studying Organizational Change? - Rosaline S Barbour
Can Focus Groups Access Community Views? - Claire Waterton and Brian Wynne
Some Issues Arising in the Systematic Analysis of Focus Group Materials - Jane Frankland and Michael Bloor
The Analytical Potential of `Sensitive Moments' in Focus Group Discussions - Jenny Kitzinger and Clare Farquhar
Can Focus Groups Be Analyzed as Talk? - Greg Myers and Phil Macnaghten
Theorizing Subjects and Subject Matter in Focus Group Research - Sarah Cunningham-Burley, Anne Kerr and Stephen Pavis
Afterword - Rosaline S Barbour and Jenny Kitzinger

This book critically examines the potential of, and suggests ways forward in, harnessing a versatile and powerful method of research - focus groups. The book challenges some of the emerging orthodoxies and presents accessible, insightful and reflective discussions about the issues around focus group work.

The contributors, an impressive group of experienced researchers from a range of disciplines and traditions, discuss different ways of designing, conducting and analyzing focus group research. They examine sampling strategies; the implications of combining focus groups with other methods; accessing views of `minority' groups; their contribution to participatory or feminist research; use of software packages; discourse analysis; and the epistemological and political underpinnings of research.