Participant Recruitment Challenges in Researching Peer Groups and Migration Retrospectively

Abstract

<jats:p>This paper discusses the challenges of researching peer groups through a multi-focal, temporal lens in a retrospective manner. Embedded in a broader “Peer Groups &amp; Migration” Qualitative Longitudinal Study (QLS), the article focuses on recruiting young respondents (aged 19-34 at present) who originally come from one of the three medium-sized towns in Polish localities and are either migrants or stayers connected to mobile individuals. The respondents are tracked retrospectively and asked to discuss their adolescence, as well encouraged to provide contacts to their youth Peer Group members. Based on fieldwork experiences and field access challenges, four models of recruiting migrants’ high school peer groups are presented. Furthermore, variants and rationales of non-recruitment are also provided. Focusing on the process of establishing a long-term and large-scale peer panel in the QLS, the paper contributes detailed know-how and strategies around participant recruitment.</jats:p>

Reaching the unreachable: how to recruit those forcefully returned due to criminal convictions?

“…Research with Polish migrants recruited via Facebook has been carried out before (Pszczółkowska, 2020, p. 5;Pustułka et al, 2017) and proved to be quite successful. We tried to use the good practices (and warnings) that resulted from these experiences.…”

Studia Socjologiczne

“…and asked to sign a consent form. Good practices of studying peer groups and networks meant that 'no research material has been shared between interviewees; (...) it ensured internal privacy and unbiased reconstructions of personal relations' (Grabowska et al 2017;Pustułka et al 2017). IDIs were conducted mainly face-to-face, with digital methods implemented sporadically for those who lived abroad.…”

“…The work was, therefore, thought out as an explanatory case-study approach (Stake 2008), informed by the evidence of entanglements between emotions/space or friendship/mobility in the examined accounts. Notably, standard guidelines were followed when it came to delineating a PG 1 , as the project employed a self-selection method to determine who the closest friends of a person were (Ryan 2000;Pustułka et al 2017). Sociograms were used to visualize social and spatial distances (Pahl, Spencer 2004) and interviewees narrated the story of peer group relations retrospectively from secondary school to early adulthood.…”

Jak migrują kobiety z pokolenia Millenialsów? Mobilność międzynarodowa a płeć i role rodzinne.

“…Do tej pory zrealizowano w dwóch falach ponad 160 wywiadów, a wiodącą techniką są pogłębione, częściowo ustrukturyzowane indywidualne wywiady wspierane przez kołowe socjogramy i linie życia (zob. też Pustułka et al 2017).…”