Introduction

There is currently a wide variety of research methods and techniques as well as empirical data analysis perspectives when it comes to qualitative research in the social sciences and education, drawing from different analytical references, philosophical concepts, experiences, and practices. This is evidenced by the growing number of scientific associations and events, specialist journals, and handbooks on qualitative research methods around the world. Although this movement has centered on national contexts throughout the 20th century, some epistemological debates, methodological reflections, and concepts have gained international recognition and visibility. These international influences can be observed especially in relation to symbolic interactionism, social phenomenology, and the sociology of knowledge, as well as within some research traditions, such as the Chicago School, ethnomethodology, cultural studies, and oral history (Bohnsack, Pfaff, & Weller, 2010; Denzin & Lincoln, 2008).

As for the technique of group interviewing and analysis methods of these data—the focus of this article—, it is clear that growing interest in the study of social processes and collective phenomena, together with the search for more appropriate procedures and theoretical and analytical frameworks for this purpose, have contributed decisively to the development and dissemination of these. Group discussions became prominent mainly due to their use in research conducted with children and young people. As a research method, they constitute an important tool through which the researcher can reconstruct the different milieux and the collective habitus of the group. The main objective is to analyze the epiphenomena related to the social environment, to the generational context, to the experiences of socialization in school and outside of school, to the experiences of discrimination and social exclusion, among others.

Focus Groups and Group Discussion: Different Roots and Approaches

Originally referred to as “focused interviews” (Merton & Kendall, 1946), this technique emerged in the United States after World War II and began to be used in marketing research and to determine public reaction to product concepts, marketing communications, and competition between brands (Barbour, 2007; Stewart, Shamdasani, & Rook, 2014). According to Uwe Flick (2000), focus groups can also be seen as a prototype of the semi-structured interview. As a technique to evaluate the reaction of a group of people to a particular theme or product, the role of the interviewer is often confused with that of the reporter/moderator, since the latter is responsible for organizing and directing the content generated from participants.

George Gaskell (2000) points to the existence of at least three parents or traditions that gave rise to focus groups, including: (a) the tradition of group therapy (behavioral psychology) developed at the Tavistock Institute, (b) communication, and (c) the tradition of group dynamics in social psychology. However, over the course of time the influence of social psychology and clinical psychology—which at the origin of the focus groups was seen as its “core theory”—was partially abandoned or strongly violated by the users of this interview technique: “However, most research seems governed by the garbage-in-garbage-out rule. A focus group that is designed and fielded completely at odds with the method’s core logic is likely to generate questionable results” (Stewart et al., 2014, p. 8).

Focus groups have set themselves apart from the main methodological traditions of qualitative research, being characterized as a “methodological free-for-all” (Barbour, 2007, p. 29). Perhaps this openness has been responsible for the popularization of focus groups in different fields (e.g., health, communication, marketing, and social sciences), with different objectives and in different research contexts. The focus groups have been used, inter alia, in exploratory studies or more targeted research “more for evaluating than development purposes” (Stewart et al., 2014, p. 12). Focus groups are still widely used for generating hypotheses and as an exploratory tool that precedes the application of questionnaires. In such cases, the focus group is used to evaluate the effectiveness of statistical instruments and to explore participants’ insights (Barbour, 2007).

As a “flexible research tool” (Stewart et al., 2014, p. 163), focus groups remain widely used, on the one hand, to emphasize the interaction among group participants in order to generate data and insights that would not otherwise be discernible and, on the other hand, for the savings in time and costs they offer by allowing the researcher to collect more than one testimony or opinion on a particular subject at a single time (Flick, 2006; Morgan & Krueger, 1993).

Despite the strong American influence on academia and empirical social research from the 1950s onward, the focus groups of Anglo-Saxon origin did not become popular in Spain during this period. Instead, that country developed a distinct approach known as group discussions. According to Jesús Gutiérrez Brito (2008, 2011), the development of group discussions is directly associated with Jesús Ibáñez, Ángel de Lucas, and Alfonso Ortí, who were part of the core of researchers who gave rise to the Madrid Qualitative School (Gutiérrez del Álamo, 2009) or School of Critical Qualitativists of Madrid (Escuela de Cualitativistas Críticos de Madrid) (Ortí, 2005). Between the 1960s and 1980s, these researchers were responsible for the theoretical reformulation of group discussions based on critical approaches from semiology, structuralism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism (Callejo, 2001). Group discussions arose within a critical sociological current that, first, sought an alternative to the quantitative sociology that in those years was also predominant in Spain and, second, “to capture the ideological representations, values, imaginary and effective formations, etc., that predominate in a given stratum, class, or global society” (Ortí, 2005, p. 275).

Jesús Ibáñez’s 1979 work Más allá de la sociología—el grupo de discusión: Técnica y crítica has become one of the main references for the use of this interview technique not only in Spain but also in Spanish America. Ibáñez devotes much attention to the structure of the group discussions (why and for what purposes group discussions should be used), the objectives and ends of the discourse that emerges (why and to what end certain discourses emerge in a group), as well as the process of group formation (how to assemble a group discussions). In describing how to set up group discussions, the author emphasizes the importance of selecting appropriate participants and the asymmetric relations of power between the “preceptor” (a term used by the author) and members of the group. In this sense, Ibáñez (1992, 2005) argues that the formation of the group discussions cannot be guided by an “algorithm” and that the preceptor should not direct the group’s conversations, but rather provide an “open structure” so that all the participants can reproduce through their discourses “relevant relations” while allowing the participants themselves to decide what they want to talk about and in what order (1992, pp. 264–266). The task of the preceptor involves “provoking the emergence of a theme and catalyzing its discussion” (1992, p. 302).

Group discussions, conceived by Ibáñez as a less directive technique, prioritize openness and interaction among the participants themselves, while focus groups tend to accentuate the interaction between the moderator and the participants (Callejo, 2001). However, Gutiérrez Brito (2011) points out that there are other significant differences between group discussions and focus groups: the former places the researcher in the position of attentive observer who is not only collecting but, above all, extracting something of the data, that is, trying to decipher “possible apprehended discourses that supposedly await buried, suffocated, under the thickness of social and investigative control” (p. 114). From the methodological point of view, the technique is not focused on the group itself but on the discourse produced by the participants. It is a “technique that works more with the container than with the content” (p. 115), that is, it seeks to analyze the structure encompassing the discourse while sometimes silencing its representatives.

Ibáñez primarily analyzes group discussions from a psychoanalytic perspective (Martín-Criado, 1997), concentrating not only on what is said but also on what one would want to say but for some hidden reason did not (Gutiérrez Brito, 2008). Beginning in the 1990s, a new generation of Spanish sociologists, including Enrique Martín Criado, a former graduate student of Jesús Ibáñez, sought to establish a sociological foundation for the analysis of group discussions. Martin-Criado (1998) proposed a pragmatic language analysis, considering discourses as “practices of subjects in social situations” (p. 57). The author also points to the need for a change in the interpreter’s position so that, instead of being concerned with the collection of “true discourse,” s/he should adopt a position of vigilance and monitor the “relationship between the situation of discourse production and situations of practices to which the discourse [. . .] refers to the role of the researcher in the construction of the frame that gives meaning to the situation” (p. 71). This sociological orientation for the analysis of group discussions presents some points in common with the proposed analysis of group discussion through the “documentary method” that will be detailed in the section “Analysis of Group Discussions: The Documentary Method.”

Still another approach to group discussions was developed in Germany during the 1950s. Its origin is related to a group of researchers at the Frankfurt School, specifically in a study coordinated by Friedrich Pollock in the years 1950 and 1951, in which group discussions were carried out with 1,800 people from different social classes. The choice of this procedure was related to critical considerations made by the researchers regarding the validity and relevance of opinion polls and the conviction that group discussions would allow for the study of opinions, attitudes, and motivations in a more profound way, generated by the interaction between participants in a situation closer to reality (Pollock, 1955). Among this generation of Frankfurt School academics, the psychoanalytic approach to group discussions also reigned supreme, with an emphasis on revealing defense mechanisms and the rationalization of discourses, as well as what remains hidden or obscured (Bohnsack, 2014b).

In his doctoral thesis, written in the 1960s, sociologist Werner Mangold analyzed the empirical research and methodological procedures employed by the Frankfurt School, developing an approach that differed from the latter’s psychoanalytic perspective. Mangold was one of the first to criticize the way in which testimonies collected in group interviews were analyzed and to give new meaning to group discussions, transforming the method into an instrument of harnessing collective opinions. Mangold argued that “group opinion is not the sum of individual opinions but the product of collective interactions”; even though there are differences in how each participant engages in the group discussion, “individual statements are the product of mutual interaction” and “group opinions can only be deduced from the totality of verbal and non-verbal positions” (1960, p. 49). The discourse produced during a group discussion, he argued, does not result from an “experimental disposition” or a “current process of reciprocal accommodation and influence” (1973, p. 251). In other words, group opinions are not formulated but only updated at the time of the interview. In this sense, they cannot be seen as an attempt at ordering or as a result of mutual interference in the discourse itself (Bohnsack, 2004, 2014b).

One aspect of Mangold’s approach that has been criticized is the absence of a theoretical-methodical justification for the collective (theoretisch-methodische Begründung) adequate to the empirical evidence found in group discussions. According to Bohnsack, “the theoretical concept of group opinion is based on the (still prevalent) understanding of a collective in terms of the ‘faits sociaux’, in Durkheim’s sense, that are external to the actors and vested with power” (2004, p. 215; original emphasis). The incompatibility of the empirical evidence identified by Mangold in group discussions and the theoretical and methodological foundation of the Frankfurt School generated a certain discrepancy in his work, as well as difficulties in incorporating the author’s theoretical modeling of the concept of group discussions developed from the late 1970s onward (Bohnsack, 2004, 2014b). Karl Mannheim (1982) offered a definition of the collective that was more in line with empirical evidence through the concept of “conjunctive spaces of experiences” (konjunktive Erfahrungsräume). This theoretical-methodological basis for group discussions was developed by Ralf Bohnsack (1983, 1989, 2014b) along with the creation of the documentary method for analyzing empirical data that will be discussed in the section “Theoretical and Methodological Development of Group Discussions in Germany.”

Theoretical and Methodological Development of Group Discussions in Germany

Sociologist Ralf Bohnsack (2014b) points out that, with the exception of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of culture and, in part, Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, there are few possibilities for the theoretical-methodological grounding of collective representations that are empirically rooted in, for example, group discussions. According to Mannheim (1982), “collective representations are already something more than experiential contextures. In comparison to these, they are objectivities, because they establish the significance of the objects of possible experiences in a way going beyond the individual and the psyche” (p. 208). The author also argues that collective representations go beyond the psychological, that is, the level of individual psyche. First, no individual holds all practical knowledge accessible to the group, so that “the totality of knowable is divided among various individuals” (p. 209), which does not mean, however, that there is no organic whole that, in a sense, is suspended over the group. Second, there are collective representations that, due to their nature, cannot be performed by an individual, but depend on the actualization of a plurality of individuals: “an individual can well imagine the whole ceremony, but as a collective representation it is not primarily something to be thought, but rather something to be given effect through the interplay of various individuals” (p. 209). In this sense, the real groups are constituted as representatives of social structures, that is, of communicative processes in which it is possible to identify patterns and a certain model of communication. On the contrary, this model documents collective experiences as well as social characteristics of these groups, their representations of class, the social milieu, and generational belonging.

Karl Mannheim’s (1982) definition of collective and “conjunctive spaces of experiences” represented an important contribution to the theoretical-methodological foundations of group discussions developed by Ralf Bohnsack in the 1980s. For this author, the “milieux” as “conjunctive spaces of experiences” are characterized by the fact that their members, their bearers, are interconnected by similarities in their common trajectories, by biographical experiences, by common aspects in their socialization histories” (2014b, p. 111). Furthermore, it is important to consider that these conjunctive experiences are not confined exclusively to collective group experience, as Mannheim has already shown through the elaboration of the concept of generations (Mannheim, 1952b).

Group discussions, as a research method, are an important tool in the reconstruction of milieux, both group milieux (e.g., family, neighborhood) and milieux characterized as spaces of expanded conjunctive experiences (e.g., generational, educational, gender, ethno-racial origin). Group discussions attempt to reconstruct collective orientations and the models that guide the actions of subjects in these spaces. The analysis of subjects’ discourse, both from an organizational and dramaturgical point of view, is key and helps to identify the collective importance of a given topic that emerges in a group discussion.

Question Guides and the Conduct of Group Discussions

The question guide for a group discussion is not an instrument to be followed strictly. It should also not be presented directly to the participants so that they do not get the impression that it is a questionnaire to be answered according to a previously structured question–answer scheme. However, this does not mean that there are no criteria for conducting group discussions. It is crucial, for example, that the initial question be the same for all groups, since the goal is to analyze them comparatively.

Bohnsack (2014b) developed some principles for conducting group discussions, suggesting that the researcher should: establish reciprocal contact with the participants and provide a basis of mutual trust; direct questions to the group as a whole and not to a specific member; start the discussion with a vague question that stimulates participation and interaction among the members; allow for the organization or ordering of discourses to be carried out by the group; formulate questions that generate narratives and not the mere description of facts. Therefore, one must avoid “why” questions and prioritize those asking “how.” Researchers should also make sure the discussion is directed by the group and that its members choose the form and the topics of the debate, intervening only when asked or if another question becomes necessary to maintain group interaction. Next, when the group indicates that discussion of a certain topic has been exhausted, the researcher should initiate a second round of relevant questions with the goal of deepening or clarifying doubts about aspects discussed up to that moment. At the end of this phase, the researcher will be able to ask specific questions to the group on matters that have not yet been discussed and which pertain to the research. If deemed appropriate, the researcher may pose divergent or provocative questions in the final session.

Group Discussion: Advantages Beyond “Time Saving”

As presented, the reader will notice that this method does not necessarily represent a “time-saving” method, since group discussions can extend for one, two, or more hours of debate. Some authors criticize the immensity of data collected in this way and the difficulty of transcribing all of it (Flick, 2006). Some advantages obtained through this method, however, especially in research with young people (Weller, 2003, 2006, 2011), include the following:

Analysis of Group Discussions: The Documentary Method

Bohnsack (1983, 1989, 2014b) developed a procedure for empirical data analysis known as “the documentary method,” an allusion to Karl Mannheim’s use of this concept in his article “On the Interpretation of Weltanschauung” (1952a). Although strongly inspired by the writings of Mannheim from the 1920s, the documentary method proposed by Bohnsack was also influenced by ethnomethodology and later by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture as well as Erving Panofsky’s iconology (see Bohnsack, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2017).

According to Bohnsack, Mannheim developed “the first comprehensive argument for a particular approach to observation in the social sciences, which even today is able to meet the requirements of epistemological reasoning” (2014a, p. 217). For Mannheim (1952a), there are three types of meanings that can be identified in daily actions. For instance, in the gesture of giving alms there is an immanent or objective level of meaning that is given, that is, that can be interpreted immediately; another refers to the expressive level of meaning, which is the one transmitted by words or actions and requires knowledge of the actors involved in order to be interpreted; finally, there is the documentary level, which documents practical action and requires that the interpretation process also involve the position of the one who is interpreting (see Weller, 2005a, 2005b). In addition to the definition of these three levels of interpretation, Mannheim (1982) emphasizes that the comprehension of the documentary level occurs only by the development of a sociogenetic attitude in the process of interpretation. This attitude is one of the most important components of the documentary method and it presupposes an analytical change “from the question of what cultural and social facts are all about to the question of how they are accomplished or generated, that is to the questions concerning the social processes of the coming about of what is taken for granted as cultural and social facts” (Bohnsack, 2014a, p. 218).

The question of how implies a position of second-order observation and analysis that goes beyond the explanation of common-sense theories. According to Bohnsack (2012, 2013), Mannheim (1982) had presented the documentary method as a way of accessing cultural contexts in unknown milieux, and spaces of conjunctive experiences. He also pointed out two forms of knowledge shared by the individuals he defined as communicative knowledge and connective knowledge. If we take the concept of family as an example, communicative knowledge corresponds to a generalized type of knowledge about roles between parents and children, about religious norms and traditions around the institution of the family. Communicative knowledge about the family corresponds to an “orienting scheme” (Orientierungsschemata). Connective knowledge characterizes the knowledge within the family, that is, a form of implicit or tacit knowledge that arises from shared biographies and collective memory. This knowledge guides the practical actions and corresponds to the habitus, or the “orienting frame” (Orientierungsrahmen). In other words, it serves as a framework for practical actions. In this sense, reconstruction requires a detailed analysis of the relationship between the two forms of knowledge, especially the “framework” and the modus operandi of practical actions.

Another central element of the documentary method is the distinction it draws between understanding (verstehen) and interpretation (interpretieren). Individuals who share common atheoretical experiences and knowledge, and consequently a habitus, understand each other immediately because they are linked by connective knowledge or conjunctive experiences (Bohnsack, 2014a).¹ This is Mannheim’s definition of understanding, which is different from interpretation. The interpretation, that is, the theoretical explanation of the modus operandi that guides practical action and through which the guideline is constituted and reproduced, requires a specific line or instance of analysis—a sociogenetic posture on the part of the researcher—that asks how, as already highlighted.

It is also necessary to consider that group associations like family, neighbors, friends, or peer groups are not the only relationships based on spaces of conjunctive experiences and conjunctive understanding. Generation, social environment, and gender are also constituted through commonalities in the stratification of experiences that, in turn, establish a link between those who have experienced common events in a social and temporal context, whether concrete or virtual. This link, which Mannheim referred to as generational connection (Generationszusammenhang) in his article “The Problem of Generations” (1952b), is responsible for the creation of specific generational spaces of conjunctive experiences, such as the 1968 generation (Bohnsack, 2014a). Therefore, the analysis of group discussions according to the documentary method also includes a process of differentiating the various spaces of conjunctive experiences related, for example, to the social environment, generation, and ethno-racial belonging of young people in the hip-hop scene in Berlin and São Paulo (see Weller, 2003, 2011).

The relationship between social structures and the knowledge of the actors represents a central element of the sociological analysis of the milieux. In this sense, the use of the documentary method in analyzing group discussions includes both the internal perspective—which seeks to reconstruct the orientation framework through which the members of a group interact—as well as the external perspective, focused on analyzing the representation of interactive phenomena in a given structure. This dual perspective of analysis breaks, to a certain extent, with the interactionist tradition prevalent in some of the research produced in the 1970s, in which the relationship between the researched group and the social context remained in the background (Bohnsack, 2014b). The orientations or collective representations of a group do not constitute a model evident in a first level of interpretation. Therefore, the theoretical apprehension of collective guidelines is performed through the interpretation of the discursive and narrative passages of the group discussions in different stages, as now shown.

The Steps of a Documentary Analysis of Group Discussions

Reconstruction is one of the main interpretation tools of the documentary method and requires a labor-intensive analysis that cannot be performed in a single step. This section details the different stages of analysis of group discussions referred to as thematic organization, formulating interpretation, reflecting interpretation, comparative analysis, and type construction.

In the thematic organization of the group discussion, the term “passage” is used to define an excerpt of the conversation related to a specific topic. A passage is usually between five and 15 minutes long and is easily identified since it begins with a question from the researcher or with a new subject introduced by one of the participants and usually ends with a conclusion on the topic discussed. The process begins with the identification of the themes and subthemes, the selection of the central passages (also called focus metaphors), and the relevant passages for the research and transcription of the selected material. The methodological difference between the immanent sense and the documentary meaning has as a consequence the distinction of two work steps clearly delimited during the process of interpretation. It is necessary to explain where and to what extent the interpretation or conceptual explanation carried out by the respondents was simply reformulated by the researcher or interpreter (formulating interpretation), and, secondarily, to verify from which point the interpretations result from the reflection of the interpreter on the implicit evidences related to the subjects’ knowledge of the research (reflecting interpretation).

The basic structure of the formulating interpretation is thematic, that is, the decoding and formulation of the topical structure of the texts. During the formulating interpretation, one tries to understand the immanent sense of the discussions and to decode the colloquial vocabulary. In other words, the researcher describes what was said by the informants, bringing the content into a language that can also be understood by those who do not belong to that particular social environment. During this step of analysis, comparisons are not drawn with other passages of the same group or with answers obtained in another group. At that moment, the knowledge that the researcher has about the group or about the researched environment must also remain in the background, being activated only in a later stage of the analysis.

In the analysis of a group discussion, the reflecting interpretation comprises the identification and differentiation of the discursive genres present in the text, the reconstruction of the organization of the discourse, and the interactions among the participants. This involves, for example, the way they refer to each other, considering the dramaturgy and the density of the discourse. The process of differentiating discursive genres in a group discussion focuses basically on distinguishing between the narrative and descriptive segments as well as the argumentative and theoretical-explanatory parts present in the text. The experience of group discussion analysis has shown that the implicit or atheoretical knowledge concerning the orientation frame or the group habitus that in turn guides the practical actions of the subjects is mainly found in the narrative and descriptive segments. The reconstruction of interactions or of how the participants organize the discourse is of paramount importance, since it reveals to what extent the research subjects share a space of conjunctive experiences and specific social orientations (Bohnsack, 2014a, 2014b). During the reflecting interpretation, in other words, in the process of explaining a norm, a model, or framework of orientation, the researcher seeks to analyze not only thematic issues that may seem interesting, but also homologous patterns or typical aspects of the social environment. However, finding a guiding framework that is typical of a social group or milieu can only be achieved through comparison with other groups.²

The comparative analysis is already starting to be developed during fieldwork, when the researcher conducts the group discussions. The selection of groups does not occur randomly, but according to the procedure referred to as theoretical sampling by the founders of grounded theory (see Glaser & Strauss, 1967, pp. 45–77). Thus, the search for comparative cases is carried out through objective criteria that, in a way, structure the research corpus. This structuring of the sample facilitates the search for homologous or divergent patterns among different cases studied, for example, in relation to the way members of a group position themselves (usually through differentiation with other groups) to the construction of the discourse on a certain theme and to the framework of discourse orientation: “In this phase of comparative analysis, the theme receives the function of a tertium comparationis, which is the function of the third element structured by the comparison” (Bohnsack, 2011, p. 26). Through the tertium comparationis, for example, the results obtained in the analysis of two or more group discussions, contrasts between seemingly homogeneous cases become evident (see Nohl, 2001). Comparative analysis in the documentary method is fundamentally important from the beginning since the frame of reference for a certain group or social environment can only be verified when placed in relation to other horizons or comparative universes during the process of interpretation.

According to Mannheim (1952a), interpretation is not neutral and will always be associated with theoretical formation, as well as with the local and social belonging of the interpreter (in Mannheim’s terminology: Standortgebundenheit oder Seinsverbundenheit des Denkens). It is not possible to exclude knowledge and experience gained over the course of the analysis process. However, comparative analysis exercises control over the theoretical knowledge and the position that the researcher occupies in the social sphere, insofar as the social environment and the implicit knowledge of the studied group is analyzed through the comparison with other empirical cases. Comparative analysis thus plays a part in understanding the strange or distant reality of the universe of the researcher (methodisch kontrolliertes Fremdverstehen), that is, controlling for the statements or generalizations made on the basis of empirical material. For the documentary method, comparative analysis also aims to construct types that can serve as the basis for the creation of a typology at a later stage (Weller, 2003, 2005a, 2005b).

Type construction derives from a process of abduction, that is, “from the reconstituted structure of the case (or its dimensions) stems the generation of a structure of the type,” which, in turn, is based essentially on the implicit or atheoretical knowledge of the actors and not on “rule systems beyond the knowledge of the respondents” (Bohnsack, 2014b, p. 198). In the process of constructing types, Bohnsack (2001, 2011, 2014a) distinguishes between two levels referred to as meaning-genetic typification (sinngenetische Typenbildung) and sociogenetic typification (soziogenetische Typenbildung), which refer back to a distinction made by Mannheim (1982, pp. 77–84) between the interpretation of the genesis of meaning (sinngenetische Interpretation) and the distinctive socio-genetic focus on the functionality of cultural formations. The observation of a framework repeated in the cross-analysis of several cases represents the first moment in the construction of meaning-genetic typification. Second, the orientation or the type identified becomes the tertium comparationis itself: “The construction of type, from this point of view, is also the product of a reflexive interaction, of a complex hermeneutic circle” (Bohnsack, 2011, p. 27). The level—sociogenetic typification—seeks to analyze, abductively, the genesis of a guiding framework or the habitus and under what circumstances it is typical. For example, for an orientation to be defined as typical of the rural environment, the genesis of this orientation must be located in the experiences of the rural space (Bohnsack, 2014a). The construction of sociogenetic types implies an access to the background of spaces of conjunctive experiences, that is, the processes of socialization and biographical developments.

One example of type construction can be found in a comparative study conducted with young blacks in São Paulo and young people of Turkish origin in Berlin regarding their affiliation to the hip-hop scene in those respective cities. Researchers sought to understand the worldviews of these young people and the way globalized cultural styles are appropriated and resignified. At the same time, this study on the genesis, structure, and function of youth groups analyzed the importance of these cultural practices in the construction of identities in the face of socio-spatial segregation and ethnic and/or religious discrimination (Weller, 2003, 2011, 2017). Two models or types of collective orientations were evidenced in the process of interpreting and analyzing the data, and what drew attention was the fact that they existed among the young people of both cities. Those belonging to the first type—dubbed the generational orientation—defined hip-hop as a revolutionary movement, not in the political but cultural sense and specific to its generation. Another common element of the generational orientation was related to the thematization of the problems experienced in relation to the paternal/maternal generation, as well as the elaboration and the overcoming of processes of biographical-family ruptures and of experiences lived in the social environment through the aesthetic-musical way. The second type—referred to as the class struggle orientation—perceived hip-hop as an instrument for the dissemination of a particular message and as an adequate means for articulating the sociopolitical aspirations of these groups. The analysis of interethnic and class relations represented a central element of the class-struggle orientation, which had as main characteristics the theoretical-reflexive discourse against the processes of segregation and production of social inequalities. Another aspect in common between the Berlin and São Paulo groups was the projection of collective forms of living and the constitution of solidarity or multicultural communities. A later stage of the research tried to verify how these same groups dealt with experiences of ethno-racial discrimination and marginalization as children of migrants from Turkey or as inhabitants of a neighborhood located on the outskirts of São Paulo. In this stage of analysis, it was possible to verify that the groups of the generational-orientation type had incorporated a practical-communicative sense in confronting racism and social prejudice, while the class-struggle-orientation groups had developed a theoretical-strategic sense. The practical-communicative strategy was characterized by attempts at direct communication with the “other,” seeking to lead the discriminator to reassess their stereotypes and prejudices toward marginalized groups. This strategy was intrinsically linked to the generational orientation of these groups, that is, the understanding between generations on a more global level and the constitution of social relations from personal identity. The theoretical-strategic sense presents a theoretical-reflexive position in relation to racism in the public sphere, with arguments elaborated around issues such as ethnic/racial and class inequalities and mechanisms of social exclusion operating in both countries. These two types of orientation were also identified in the rappers’ musical texts, both in this research and in another work by Tella (see Weller & Tella, 2011).

Based on this example of type construction, we can affirm that the documentary method makes it possible to generalize results obtained through this meticulous process of interpretation. In order to do so, it is necessary to take into account the multidimensionality of spaces of experiences or typifications: “The level of validity and generalizability of a single type depends on how precisely it can be differentiated from other possible types. It depends on how manifold, that is multi-dimensional, the single case can be found within a whole typology” (Bohnsack, 2014a, p. 229).

Writing and Presenting the Results

Conclusion

This article has sought to provide an overview of group discussions and the documentary method strongly anchored in the sociology of knowledge of Karl Mannheim, whose works, although available in English and in other languages, remain little studied in Latin America. For an applied and concrete understanding of both procedures, three research experiences developed in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil were selected. The research projects presented, as well as other studies, reveal that group discussions offer the researcher privileged access to spaces of conjunctive experiences and social contexts, allowing for the comprehension and conceptualization of worldviews and collective group perspectives, their actions and forms of representation in the social environment in which they live.

Along with group discussions, the documentary method proposes carrying out a praxiological sociology of knowledge (Bohnsack, 2014b, 2017), which transcends inductive analysis and, based on the abduction principle, allows for the construction of analytical procedures anchored in the praxis and capable of mapping and giving shape to, for example, the experiences of schooling and vocational training in Latin American countries. In short, working with the documentary method means taking a sensitive and methodologically controlled approach in the process of understanding milieux that lack theoretical reflection, a sociogenetic attitude in the terms proposed by Karl Mannheim (1982). Considering that we are undergoing a kind of internationalization of qualitative research, with the risk of a certain standardization of results, the documentary method is also an important tool against these homogenizing tendencies, since it offers privileged access to social settings and systems of relevance for respective groups and organizations.