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This paper introduces and reviews the use of focus group methodology across the social sciences, identifying three different research traditions within which it has been used. It examines some key considerations affecting the use of focus groups, and highlights three central features of focus group research: providing access to participants' own language, concepts and concerns; encouraging the production of more fully articulated accounts; and offering an opportunity to observe the process of collective sense-making in action. Finally, the paper outlines some of the issues in the analysis of focus group data-an area with considerable potential for future development.