Methods

Primary Data Collection

In one of the first trips to Fuquay-Varina, the team engaged in a windshield tour of Fuquay-Varina, led by the team's preceptor. During this tour, the team observed and took field notes about the physical conditions of Fuquay-Varina and visited some sites that the preceptor considered important. Two of these sites were Pine Acres Community Center and La Pulga.

Later in the semester, the team attended mass at St. Bernadette Catholic Church, the church with the largest Spanish language service in Fuquay-Varina. Through the church, team members made many contacts with Latino community members and church staff, who later helped assemble the first focus group with Latino community members. After each visit to Fuquay-Varina, the team members wrote field notes, to help team members organize their thoughts on what they had seen in the community. Team members referred back to these field notes in order to recall details of their visits to Fuquay-Varina. A primary focus of the AOCD process was on the gathering of information on the Latino community through interviews and focus groups.

Development of Interview/Focus Group Guides

The interview guides for community members and service providers were developed in the first stages of the community diagnosis process using interview and focus group guides from previous community diagnoses as references. In addition, the windshield tour was useful when creating the interview guides since it provided a window into the community's day-to-day activities and a sample of services available.

The team conducted a pre-test of the service provider interview with the preceptor in order to receive feedback on the wording, sequence and clarity of the questions. As subsequent interviews were conducted, the guides were tailored to fit the backgrounds and needs of interviewees, including time limitations, and areas of interest and expertise. In order to conduct interviews and focus groups with non-English speaking Latinos, the guides and fact sheets were translated into Spanish (See Appendix A).

Research approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina (UNC) prior to interviewing any service providers or community members. All UNC projects that involve human subjects must undergo a thorough screening process, to ensure that no harm is being done to the people involved. A copy of the approval letter from the IRB is located in Appendix E.

Recruitment of Interviewees and Focus Group Participants

A total of 32 service providers and community members were interviewed for the purpose of the community diagnosis. Team members interviewed thirteen service providers and two non-Latino community members, making a total of 15 outsiders. Three focus groups and two one-on-one interviews with a total of 17 insiders were conducted in Spanish.

The team's preceptor initially provided a list of service providers to interview. These individuals included directors of local agencies, church leaders, and public officials. Each interviewee was asked to contact any individuals they perceived as key informants, or sources of information on the Latino community in Fuquay-Varina, and to obtain their permission for the team to contact them for an interview. In this way, the team was able to interview 13 service providers, many of whom were repeatedly suggested as possible interviewees, therefore strengthening their image as key informants.

A few community members were interviewed individually, but most participated in one of the three focus groups conducted. The first focus group was organized through a contact at St. Bernadette. From that focus group, two individuals were referred for individual interviews. The second and third focus groups were organized with the help of a very active community member.

Description of the Interviews and Focus Groups

Two team members were present at every interview or focus group. One person conducted the interview or focus group, while the other took notes. After reading through the appropriate fact sheet with the interviewee or focus group participants and obtaining verbal consent to participate in the interview or focus group, the interviewer asked for verbal permission to tape-record the session. After each interview or focus group, team members discussed the key points and impressions.

Primary Data Analysis

During the data analysis sessions, two team members would replay the interview or focus group tape while reading the typed notes. Missing information from the typed notes was added, and important quotes were noted. The pair typically consisted of the interviewer during that session and a second team member who had not been present at the focus group or interview and thus could offer an objective view.

Preliminary codes emerged from the data of the first three interviews. These codes were then used as a reference for the rest of the interviews. A code is a phrase that summarizes an overarching concept or idea, while a sub-code is a component of the general idea. For example, the code "education" includes multiple sub-codes, such as "drop-outs" and "diversity education." Any new codes and sub-codes discovered in the remaining interviews were added to this preliminary list. If necessary, team members reviewed previously analyzed interviews and focus groups, so that these new codes could be added.

The codes and sub-codes were placed in a spreadsheet to organize and present them in a coherent fashion. In addition, the spreadsheets helped to identify the most frequently occurring codes from the focus groups and interviews. Although many of the overarching codes that appeared in the service provider interviews also appeared in the community member interviews and focus groups, the sub-codes were different. For a visual comparison of the differences in the sub-codes between service provider and community member interviews or focus groups, please refer to the separate spreadsheets in Appendix I. (Many of the codes from the MFW focus group were different from the codes derived from other interviews and focus groups. For this reason, a separate list of codes for MFWs was developed for analysis -See Appendix I).

Themes were derived from the most frequently occurring codes. Themes, in contrast to codes, are broad sentences that have a particular direction, positive or negative, and are designed to provoke discussion. For example, one theme that emerged was: "Gaps in communication and understanding between schools and Latino parents and students make it difficult for Latino youth to reach their full potential." After the team compiled a preliminary list of ten themes, this list was presented to the forum planning committee who then gave feedback, including ideas on how themes could be collapsed into broader themes. This process served to create discussion-provoking themes that were authentic to the Latino community.

Limitations: Primary Data

In general, one of the limitations of team's primary data collection process was the small amount of time the team was able to spend in the community. It takes a long time to gain entrée into and trust from a community, especially one as new as the Latino community of Fuquay-Varina. The team may have been able to obtain a broader, perhaps deeper perspective, had they been able to spend more time in the community and talk to more people before and during the interview process. Another concern was that all of the materials related to the focus groups, interviews, forum planning committee meetings, and the forum itself had to be translated into Spanish. Although this translation process was crucial to the team's work in Fuquay-Varina, it took away from the time that the team had to spend in the community.

Another limitation related to gaining trust from the community involves legal status issues. Some Latinos may not have trusted the team, and thus they may have avoided discussing certain issues during the focus groups and interviews, due to their legal status.

Another limitation is the deficit of interviews with youth. As demonstrated by the interviews and focus groups, youth is an important theme for the Latino community. Ideally, the team would have conducted focus groups and interviews with Latino youth. However, time constraints prevented the team from interviewing youth.

A final limitation is that the initial interviews were conducted with service providers. This may have colored the team's initial perceptions of issues important to the Latino community. It would have been beneficial to begin with more community member interviews in order to capture the insider viewpoint from the beginning.

Secondary Data Collection

Although emphasis was placed on the primary data collection, secondary data was collected to provide background information and support some of the findings regarding youth that were derived from the interviews and focus groups. Statistics were collected from the following sources: the 2000 Census and the Wake County Public School System. The team also reviewed weekly editions of the Fuquay-Varina Independent newspaper in order to help identify community leaders and keep abreast of town developments. Team-members took turns creating newspaper summaries that highlighted news about people, places and events in Fuquay-Varina, and shared them at weekly team meetings. These summaries helped to give team-members a general background about community life that enabled the team to delve for more detailed information during interviews. Issues of La Conexión were also reviewed to gain a broader sense of issues facing Latinos in NC.

Statistics on the county level may not be as reflective of the situation in Fuquay-Varina, since they include Raleigh and other cities. Thus, it is important to include statistics specific to the Latino population of Fuquay-Varina. However, many Latino children from Fuquay-Varina attend schools in other cities, including Garner and Willow Springs. Thus, it was appropriate to use the WCPSS data, since they may reflect trends occurring in Wake County as a whole (see Secondary Data section).

Limitations: Secondary Data

As mentioned in the earlier section on secondary data, the Census figures may not reflect the true population of Latinos in Fuquay-Varina. Lack of understanding about the uses of Census data and discomfort with responding to government requests for information may cause a substantial proportion of the Latino population to not report to the Census. Furthermore, as many insiders and outsiders stated, Latino immigrants arrive everyday. Thus, the influx of Latinos in the past two years is not reflected in the findings of the 2000 Census.

Racial Interaction Between Groups

Community Forum Report