RESEARCHING HARD-TO-REACH SOCIAL GROUPS: THE EXAMPLE OF GAY AND LESBIAN POPULATION IN SLOVENIA
RESEARCHING HARD-TO-REACH SOCIAL GROUPS: THE EXAMPLE OF GAY AND LESBIAN POPULATION IN SLOVENIA

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the main methodological dilemmas in researching the everyday life of a hard-to-reach social group – gay and lesbian population. It is based on the experiences from the research project on the everyday life of gays and lesbians in Slovenia, carried out by the authors of the paper in the period 2002-2004. The project combined qualitative and quantitative methodology. The quantitative survey consisted of face-to-face structured interviews (questionnaires) carried out on the sample of 443 gays and lesbians. Sampling was done by link-tracing method. The qualitative part consisted of three lesbian and four gay focus groups. While the quantitative survey covered a wide range of aspects of the everyday life (homosexual identity and coming-out; partnership; violence and discrimination; education; working place; GLBT subculture and media; children and family relations), the qualitative research focused on the selected topics (coming-out, partnership, and violence) in order to deepen the information gathered by the survey. In the last part of the article, the authors present the main findings from the research project, focusing on the selected topic: violence.

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