Focus Groups with Native Americans

From its inception as an independent firm in 1989, Craciun Research Group, Inc. has pioneered innovative research with Alaska’s Native Peoples and has extended that knowledge to our national work with Native Americans. Although experienced and educated in all types of marketing research, Jean Craciun’s forte lies in qualitative research, specifically focus groups, and she strongly believes in the advantages that focus group research can lend to work among Native American populations. When adapted to an Alaskan rural environment in a way sensitive to cultural requirements, focus group research has been a highly effective method that provides a unique approach to learning about the experiences and perceptions of a unique target population. Our extensive work in the field has demonstrated that certain adaptations are required for focus group sessions with Native Americans:

· less closed-ended questions and more open-ended with subtle probes,

· individual statements yield less interaction,

· less critical debate of comments made,

· more deference to elders,

· more silence to allow more time for members to process issues, and

· more intense listening by researchers to consider the impact of subtle statements.

As in all our focus groups, we strive to create a non-threatening, friendly environment for people to meet and share experiences and history. Participants are often pleased that someone is genuinely interested in what they have to say and that the researchers are trying to understand their reality and their experiences. In Alaska’s Native rural communities participants have related the experience to a traditional communication technique referred to as a “talking circle.”

Craciun Research Group has completed many projects over the past twenty years involving research with Native Americans in Alaska, Russia, and nationwide. Jean Craciun is a Sociologist and has been involved with some of the most important concerns facing Alaska’s indigenous peoples, including work on alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse, health issues, native arts and crafts, economic development efforts in rural areas, rural sanitation issues, subsistence related issues and most recently complications confounded by an urban rural divide. Qualitative research tools can assist interested groups and organizations to receive essential feedback and involvement by Native American Peoples.

Focus Groups with Indigenous Russian Peoples

In 1991-1995 Craciun worked abroad for the U.S. Agency for International Development as a key resource to a social conversion project designed to develop economic reform and democratization in Russia. The ROSCON (Russian Society for Social Conversion) project was funded in March 1993, by USAID in support of a Russian initiative to facilitate the transition to a free market economy. In 1992 USAID requested assistance from the Academy for Educational Development (AED), and they hired Jean Craciun to develop a program to assist the Russian people to better understand the reform process at a time when the republics of the former Soviet Union were undergoing profound social and economic change as part of the process of democratization. Ms. Craciun trained Russian Sociologists on how to conduct Focus Group Research and worked closely with a joint Russian American Working group responsible for the coordination of the project. The Russian side was represented by Cemintell, a non-governmental organization formed by specialists in Socio-Economic Research from the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute. AED was the implementing agency for the project from the U.S. side. Prior and subsequent to this work Craciun participated in numerous humanitarian training projects from Women in Business Conferences in Yakutsk, Sakha region to UAA American Russian Centers “Political Grassroots Organizing Training” projects in Petropavlovsk/Khabarovsk.