Youth Research Lab

The main aim of this working paper is to introduce the conceptual and methodological frameworks of the Peer groups and migration project, which is the flagship longitudinal, multisited undertaking of the Youth Research Center of the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, lasting from 2016 to 2020. In this paper we discuss how a peer group is made up and how migration influences transition to adulthood with special focus on school-to-work transitions.
The paper is constructed around a macro-meso-micro model wherein the peer group with various cohorts: movers and stayers, school and non-school friends, age groups is at stake. Three selected local communities operate at the macro level, peer influences and family at meso level, and the individual trajectories and transitions of the participants at the micro level. The combination of the three levels helps to answer our research questions on the impact of a peer group on the life trajectories marked by migration and determines the interlacing roles played by family, local community and new media in these processes.
In order to grasp the complexity of the project we apply the methodology of Qualitative Longitudinal Study (QLS) developed and promoted by Neale (Neale and Flowerdew 2003; Neale forthcoming). We approach individuals in peer groups in three selected local communities in Poland and walk along side with them throughout the course of three waves (36 months). With this approach we aim at linking notions of migration/sedentarism, peer group, and locality, in order to highlight the advantages of the project’s approach. We see it as means for developing a comparative and temporally-embedded understanding of youth experiences in the medium-sized towns, seeing them as a lens to the realities of the dynamic Polish post-1989-transformation and post-EU-accession society (post 2004).

This paper discusses the challenges of researching peer groups through a multi-focal, temporal lens  in a retrospective manner. Embedded in a broader “Peer Groups & Migration” Qualitative Longitudinal Study (QLS), the article focuses on recruiting young respondents (aged 19-34 at present) who originally come from one of the three medium-sized towns in Polish localities and are either migrants or stayers connected to mobile individuals. The respondents are tracked retrospectively and asked to discuss their adolescence, as well encouraged to provide contacts to their youth Peer Group members. Based on fieldwork experiences and field access challenges, four models of recruiting migrants’ high school peer groups are presented. Furthermore, variants and rationales of non-recruitment are also provided. Focusing on the process of establishing a long-term and large-scale peer panel in the QLS, the paper contributes detailed know-how and strategies around participant recruitment.