Chapter 2 26 2.2.1 Sampling and recruitment We initiated our collaboration with a community center located in a neighborhood in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The neighborhood was selected based on its neighborhood SEP, a combined measure of neighborhood income, education, and occupation (CBS, 2019). The neighborhood in which the community center is situated has been one of the lowest scoring neighborhoods on livability; a combined measure of its social, physical and safety index (Gemeente Rotterdam, 2020). The area therefore is on the agenda as one of the focus-neighborhoods of the municipality of Rotterdam. Sixty-eight percent of the inhabitants have a migration background, compared to 52% in Rotterdam. In addition, 59% of the households have a low income compared to 52% in Rotterdam. Finally, 34% of the inhabitants have a low education, compared to 32% in Rotterdam (de Graaf, 2018). The participants were sampled based on their affiliation with the community center and their living area (neighborhood SEP). The community center situated in this neighborhood facilitates inhabitants that struggle with fundamental aspects of their life. They focus on poverty, occupation, living, social contacts, upbringing, and safety. We included participants living in the selected neighborhood with the following affiliations with the community center: (1) Visitors (Vi): Persons who visit the community center regularly and require support. (2) Volunteers (Vo): Unemployed persons who performed volunteering work in the community center in exchange for state funding. (3) Key persons (Kp): Social workers who have close relationships with the community members. In this study, Kp’s were not considered as part of the target group as they are employed at the community center and are in the role of providing support. However, since they interact with Vi’s and Vo’s on a daily basis, we included them to learn about attitudes within the community from the Kp’s perspective. In that light, we did not include Kp’s in the second phase of the study as we were solely interested in acquiring a deeper understanding of the attitudes we observed in the first phase. Finally, it should be noted that Vo’s could visit the community center as Vi’s as well. For this study, we considered persons a Vo when they had at least one regular weekly shift at the community center. In phase one, we sampled the participants conveniently and recruited them faceto-face at the community center. In the second phase, Vo’s and Vi’s were purposively sampled and recruited face-to-face. In phase three, we recruited participants for the questionnaire through an advertisement on the community center’s Facebook page and WhatsApp group and through Kp’s of various community centers within the same neighborhood. The participants for the focus groups were recruited through a question attached at the end of the digital questionnaire and by approaching them face-to-face at the community center. Because of the come-and-go nature of the community center,
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