4 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017
Method
A retrospective, narrative-based research study
was conducted to explore participants’
adjustment from the Centrepoint community to
the outside world and their views on how their
childhood experiences had impacted their adults
lives. The study adapted a voice-relational
narrative methodology (Brown &Gilligan,
1992 1993 Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, &
Bertsch, 2003) to analyze the accounts of
participants. This method was chosen for a
number of reasons. First, as a feminist
methodology, this approach is concerned to
allow the voices of those with less power in
society to be heard. This seemed appropriate for
research on the former Centrepoint children
who, despite having been the subject of public
media and court proceedings, had had little
opportunity to tell their version of their
experiences. Second, this approach treats
experience as fundamentally relational. This was
particularly suitable for understanding the
impact of Centrepoint, which had had the
transformation of social relationships as
fundamental to its ideology. Third, while this
approach has much in common with other
narrative methodologies, it differs in
encouraging researchers to attend to different
perspectives within a single account through the
use of multiple readings of the same transcript.
This is designed to illuminate both the obvious
and less obvious voices contained in the
narrative. We thought that this would be useful,
not only in identifying differences between
participants, but also in capturing potential
diversity within as well as between participants’
accounts. Finally, this method also places
emphasis on responses of the researchers and
encourages a reflexive awareness of the way
they attend to different strands in a story and
also shape it in particular ways. This is
particularly important in the study of
controversial communities such as Centrepoint,
which are known to evoke polarized
perspectives amongst researchers (Zablocki &
Robbins, 2001). We used discussion amongst
the group of researchers to challenge the
temptation to provide simplistic or one-sided
interpretations of the data (Brown &Gilligan,
1992).
Participants
Letters of invitation to participate in this
research were sent to about 180 former
Centrepoint children, now adults, whose names
were available on a database held by a Trust that
administers the assets of the former Centrepoint.
The research invitation was also advertised on
the Trust’s website and by word of mouth. A 6-
month recruitment period resulted in the 29
participants (an estimated 10% to 15% of all the
children believed to have spent their childhood
at Centrepoint). Although probability sampling
was not required for this qualitative study, there
was concern to reflect the diversity of
perspectives that was known to exist amongst
the former Centrepoint children. Fortunately,
those who volunteered included a reasonable
balance of former members who felt largely
positive about their experiences at Centrepoint
and those who felt largely negative (although
many had mixed opinions about this). This
allowed us to reflect a reasonably full range of
experience. Some participants, however,
reported that they were aware of other former
children who had experienced their involvement
with Centrepoint as particularly damaging and
who were reluctant to have any involvement
with the organization that now managed its
assets. It is, therefore, possible that those who
had had the most difficult experiences at
Centrepoint were not well represented in this
study.
A detailed breakdown of the demographics of
the participants cannot be provided here because
of the need to protect participants’ anonymity,
but they ranged in age between early adulthood
and middle age. There were 6 men and 23
women in the participant group who were all of
New Zealand European or European descent.
Participants had spent varying amounts of time
at the community, ranging from those who had
been born there and spent all of their childhoods
there, to those who had spent only a few years
there.
Data Collection
Participants took part in an unstructured
narrative interview at a venue of their own
choosing. Following standard narrative method,
participants were simply asked to tell us about
Method
A retrospective, narrative-based research study
was conducted to explore participants’
adjustment from the Centrepoint community to
the outside world and their views on how their
childhood experiences had impacted their adults
lives. The study adapted a voice-relational
narrative methodology (Brown &Gilligan,
1992 1993 Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, &
Bertsch, 2003) to analyze the accounts of
participants. This method was chosen for a
number of reasons. First, as a feminist
methodology, this approach is concerned to
allow the voices of those with less power in
society to be heard. This seemed appropriate for
research on the former Centrepoint children
who, despite having been the subject of public
media and court proceedings, had had little
opportunity to tell their version of their
experiences. Second, this approach treats
experience as fundamentally relational. This was
particularly suitable for understanding the
impact of Centrepoint, which had had the
transformation of social relationships as
fundamental to its ideology. Third, while this
approach has much in common with other
narrative methodologies, it differs in
encouraging researchers to attend to different
perspectives within a single account through the
use of multiple readings of the same transcript.
This is designed to illuminate both the obvious
and less obvious voices contained in the
narrative. We thought that this would be useful,
not only in identifying differences between
participants, but also in capturing potential
diversity within as well as between participants’
accounts. Finally, this method also places
emphasis on responses of the researchers and
encourages a reflexive awareness of the way
they attend to different strands in a story and
also shape it in particular ways. This is
particularly important in the study of
controversial communities such as Centrepoint,
which are known to evoke polarized
perspectives amongst researchers (Zablocki &
Robbins, 2001). We used discussion amongst
the group of researchers to challenge the
temptation to provide simplistic or one-sided
interpretations of the data (Brown &Gilligan,
1992).
Participants
Letters of invitation to participate in this
research were sent to about 180 former
Centrepoint children, now adults, whose names
were available on a database held by a Trust that
administers the assets of the former Centrepoint.
The research invitation was also advertised on
the Trust’s website and by word of mouth. A 6-
month recruitment period resulted in the 29
participants (an estimated 10% to 15% of all the
children believed to have spent their childhood
at Centrepoint). Although probability sampling
was not required for this qualitative study, there
was concern to reflect the diversity of
perspectives that was known to exist amongst
the former Centrepoint children. Fortunately,
those who volunteered included a reasonable
balance of former members who felt largely
positive about their experiences at Centrepoint
and those who felt largely negative (although
many had mixed opinions about this). This
allowed us to reflect a reasonably full range of
experience. Some participants, however,
reported that they were aware of other former
children who had experienced their involvement
with Centrepoint as particularly damaging and
who were reluctant to have any involvement
with the organization that now managed its
assets. It is, therefore, possible that those who
had had the most difficult experiences at
Centrepoint were not well represented in this
study.
A detailed breakdown of the demographics of
the participants cannot be provided here because
of the need to protect participants’ anonymity,
but they ranged in age between early adulthood
and middle age. There were 6 men and 23
women in the participant group who were all of
New Zealand European or European descent.
Participants had spent varying amounts of time
at the community, ranging from those who had
been born there and spent all of their childhoods
there, to those who had spent only a few years
there.
Data Collection
Participants took part in an unstructured
narrative interview at a venue of their own
choosing. Following standard narrative method,
participants were simply asked to tell us about
