Alaska Native/ American Indian
Craciun Research has completed many projects over the past twenty years involving research with Native populations.
Jean Craciun is a Sociologist and has been involved with some of the most important concerns facing Alaska’s indigenous peoples, including work on:
- Resource development
- Subsistence related issues
- Economic development
- Alaska Native 8(a) contracting proposals
- Rural sanitation issues
- Native arts and cultural heritage
Although experienced and educated in all types of marketing research, Jean Craciun’s forte lies in qualitative research specifically focus groups and she strongly believes in the advantages that focus group research can lend to work among Native populations.
When adapted to an Alaskan rural environment in a way sensitive to cultural requirements, focus group research can be a highly effective methodology that provides a unique approach to learning about the experiences and perceptions of a unique target population.
Our extensive work in the field has demonstrated that certain adaptations are required for focus group sessions with Alaska’s Native Peoples:
- Less close-ended questions and more open-ended with subtle probes.
- Individual statements yield less interaction.
- Less critical debate of comments made.
- More deference to elders.
- More silence to allow more time for members to process issues.
- More intense listening by researchers to consider the impact of subtle statements.
As in all our focus groups, we strive to create a non-threatening, friendly environment for people to meet and share experiences and history. Participants are often pleased that someone is genuinely interested in what they have to say and that the researchers are trying to understand their reality and their experiences.
In Native rural communities participants have related the experience to a traditional communication technique commonly referred to as a “talking circle.”
