Stage 2: Identifying and labelling themes

The next stage of analysis involved returning to the transcript and using the notes that had previously been made in the left-hand margin to produce themes in the right-hand margin. My initial notes were transformed into concise phrases which aimed to capture the essential quality of what I found in the text, a process that continued through the whole transcript. Freire notes that, “Listening to the tapes recorded during the decoding sessions and studying the notes taken... the investigators begin to make the themes explicit” (1970, p.120).

Similar themes emerged as I went through the transcript and therefore, the same theme title was used. At this stage, I treated the entire transcript as data, and made no attempt to omit or select particular passages for special attention. I was also aware there was no requirement to generate themes and the number of emergent themes reflected the richness of that particular passage (Smith and Osborn, 2007; Smith et al., 2010). To illustrate this process, here is a section of the transcript, showing first the initial notes and then the emergent themes:

Emergent

Here we see the addition of emergent themes. Several of the young people had an attitude towards the character of Tracy Beaker: Keira referred to her as a “little snob”, Jae as a “little rat”, Carly calls her, “A liar,” but added, “She is funny though”, indicating a more nuanced opinion. Georgina referred to her as a “role model” and Daniel stated she was a “stereotype”, repeating his point, as to underline it. Keira went on to give the most vehement feeling about Tracy Beaker, stating,

“She's a B-I-T-C-H.” So even within this small excerpt from the transcript, there was a struggle for consensus, and a wide range of feelings towards the character, from the positive “role model”, to the negative, “B-I-T-C-H”, summarised by the theme “attitudes towards fictional characters”. Clearly then, there appeared little consensus, though there did appear to be a leaning to the more negative interpretations of the character. This lack of consensus is highlighted by the theme “Differing opinions”. In terms of “voice”, I noted that Georgina was able to hold her opinion amidst the group, in spite of being one of the youngest. This also suggested the group was working well together, with the young people able to challenge one another without fear of reprisals.

6.8 Stage 3. What roles and relationships are described, and what do they mean to participants?

At this stage of their protocol, Palmer and her colleagues move onto

“more focused coding”, (2010, p.109). Here then, I examined references to other people outside the group context and asked questions such as what roles and relationships were described, and what sorts of meanings and expectations were attributed to these relationships? (Palmer et al., 2010). As discussed by Palmer et. al, while this move might be similar to the more interpretative coding used in standard IPA in that it involves asking further questions of the data, focusing on key features of the young people's accounts is

distinctive, as a conscious decision to contextualise accounts. On a personal note, I have found that looked-after young people's families are incredibly important to them, so I felt this warranted individual attention. Again, this highlights why Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Smith and Osborn, 2016) was perhaps not useful in terms of my own analysis, as there were elements of the data I wanted to explore prior to analysis.

From their data, Palmer and her colleagues, “determined that relationships with professionals and organisations were especially important for understanding carers’ experiences” (2010, p.109).

However, Palmer et al. state, “steps 3 and 4 describe our attempts to situate our participants in the systemic contexts which were important to them, first at an interpersonal professional level and then at an organisational-health level. We believe that it would be useful to consider something like this when dealing with other focus group data from an IPA perspective, but note that the levels of context that are most salient for a given group of participants may well differ. For example, in another study, with another focus, we may find that interpersonal-familial or interpersonal-romantic are more important than interpersonal-professional” (p.109). From my own data, I determined that interpersonal-familial relationships were important to these young people and figures from outside the group, with siblings and other family members, along with carers and peers, often talked about. Further, the young people regularly made reference to the same people indicating a shared history and understanding. However, unlike Palmer's research, organisations were of less significance to these young people, so I omitted this stage of their protocol from my own.

Siblings outside of the group were discussed on seven occasions across the five sessions. It should be noted that there are two sibling groups

within the group – Sharna and Joey, and Georgina and Carly – and therefore they make little reference to siblings outside the group.

Brothers and sisters were described in positive terms. For example, when talking about her brother, Jae stated, “I've seen my brother in a foster home and he doesn't act like all them kids on there [meaning badly]”. Tommy talked about his sister in positive terms describing how she had to look after him and his siblings. He also talked about his younger brother very positively, describing him as a “canny kid”.

Talk of siblings was often contextualised as a talk of absence. Both Jae and Keira described how they only see their brothers during contact and Tommy detailed how his siblings were located in a variety of places. Tommy's sense of dislocation from his siblings was underlined in his desire to probe Georgina for information when she mentioned she “buddied” his little brother at school.

When talking about siblings, most group members displayed a protective attitude. For example, Tommy was vehemently protective of his younger brother, threatening violence against anyone who harmed him. He mistook Georgina's use of “buddy” for “bully” and laughed, “when you said bully him you'd be out the window man.”

Carly stepped in here, “No she wouldn't cos I don't know if you realised but her sister's also here”, further underlining this idea of a protective sibling. The only real instances of negativity towards siblings was when Jae described her brother as a “brat” and seemed to display possible resentment of her siblings for having to care for them when her mother was incapable: “what happened with me was I was looking after three [siblings], not one... Cos at the end of the day I did what I could, and I really shouldn't have had to go through that by myself.” Extracts such as these tell me that siblings appear to be the most important relationships within and outside the group, with group

members generally displaying a sense of loyalty and protectiveness towards brothers and sisters.

Other family members are discussed on six occasions across the five sessions. Parents in particular appeared to be a source of negativity and abuse. Jae stated she was “abused” by her father, Tommy told the group his mother was an “alcoholic”, while Carly stated her father was a “drugdealer.” The only positive reference to another family member was made by Ewan, who seemed to have a lot of affection for his granddad and was keen to share the fact he was a security guard. It should be noted that when the young people described these experiences, they did so in a very matter of fact manner, with seemingly very little emotion attached to their accounts. Perhaps this was because these young people had been in care for so long, they had become distanced from these experiences. It could also be that these experiences were too difficult to think about and attach emotion too, particularly in the group setting (Lahikainen et al., 2003). Carers were referred to on six occasions across the sessions, generally in the context of discussions around rules and regulations, when the group compared the onscreen rules to those in their own lives.

Peers were referred to and discussed on two occasions across the five sessions, often as examples, when a young person was attempting to make a point. For example, both Tommy and Sharna referred to their friends' self-harming behaviour. Initially, I had anticipated that peer friendships would have had a large impact on the young people, however, a lack of reference to peers perhaps suggests otherwise.

There is also a point to be made that group members were so comfortable and familiar with one another, that this was their peer group. The members of the group might well have had more influence over one another than any friends outside the group. If that was the

case, this experience was all the more beneficial, in terms of enhancing their media criticality (Milkie, 1999; Yosso, 2002) and raising their consciousness (Freire, 1970; Rindner, 2004).