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Appendix A. Research Methodology
- Cornell University Press
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Appendix A Research Methodology Three main research methodologies were used in the production of this book: in-depth interviews, observational analysis, and an intensive document review. First, I was interested in securing individual accounts of participation in fathers’ rights groups through interviews. As a female scholar, I clearly was not a natural member of these groups, yet I had to achieve access in order to conduct the one-hour-long telephone interviews with members and leaders that form the backbone of this project. Because no centralized list of fathers’ rights groups exists, I first searched the Internet and nonprofit directories for possible groups to investigate. Complicating matters, and as noted in the text, organizations that are involved in this movement describe themselves in many ways. Some prefer the term “fathers’ rights” group. Others identify themselves as “children’s rights” groups and adamantly deny that they are interested in “fathers’ rights.” Still others designate themselves as “family rights” groups. Further confounding this task is the fact that many of these groups are ephemeral in nature. Intragroup infighting is common, leading to the rapid birth and demise of these organizations over short periods of time. I therefore had to create a sampling strategy that would 272 Appendix A enable me to research a set of similarly situated groups that would remain stable over the study period. In deciding which groups to include in this analysis, therefore, I first looked at an individual group’s array of activities, mission statement, and goals. If child support and child custody reforms were primary, that particular organization was included in the pool of groups that could be studied. Groups also had to meet two other criteria. First, all selected groups had to be truly active at the time the research was conducted; that is, they could not simply be post office boxes without members. More specifically, all groups had to engage in a certain threshold of regularly scheduled activities, including in-person meetings. I therefore excluded Internet chat rooms, online groups (where some fathers’ rights organizations provide “virtual” advice and support only and do not meet in person), private companies attempting to profit from collecting child support, publishing houses and magazines devoted to these issues, and individually sponsored Web sites. Using these standards, I estimate that there were approximately one to two groups per state that were viable for study purposes.1 Second, I chose groups that would provide the research project with maximum geographic and thus membership diversity . In the end I had a potential sampling pool of fifty groups. Next I attempted to make contact with each group’s leader to deliver a general statement of research intent. I expressed to each potential participant (leaders, and then members if access was granted) my interest in obtaining information about his or her involvement in the fathers’ rights movement and parental rights in general. I also stated that another aim of this project was to understand how each potential participant’s organization helps parents achieve the goals that they desire in their family lives.2 In the end, four leaders declined participation on behalf of their groups. In addition, two leaders declined because their groups were no longer active at the time of my interview requests. Finally, 1. I used 50 of these approximately 100 groups as my sampling pool to provide the study with geographic diversity. This 100-group estimate is different than I reported in 2003, primarily because of intervening organizational turnover and a new counting methodology in this study that separated lower-level organizational units from higher-level units. For more information on organizational structure, see chapter 2 of this volume and Crowley 2003, 174–79. 2. For more information on the opportunities and challenges presented in studying these groups, see Crowley 2007. [44.210.239.12] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:13 GMT) Research Methodology 273 fourteen group leaders did not respond to my query for information, and the contact information for four group leaders was no longer valid. This left me with a final sample of twenty-six groups, including seven from the Northeast, eight from the Midwest, nine from the South, and two from the West.3 Once the group’s leader agreed to be interviewed, I then requested permission to pass around a signup sheet on the research project to all members if I planned to attend a group meeting, to post a message on the group’s Web site, or send an...