Focus Group Transcripts on Democracy, Gender Equality, and Feminism in Four European Countries (2024–2025)

This dataset contains nine anonymised qualitative focus group transcripts collected as part of Task 2.3 of the Horizon Europe project PushBackLash. The focus groups explore public perceptions of democracy, gender equality, and feminism, with particular attention to perceived backlash dynamics, democratic legitimacy, and everyday meaning-making. Sixteen focus groups were conducted across four European countries (Austria, Spain, Hungary, and the United Kingdom) between December 2024 and May 2025, yielding data from 88 participants. Each country convened four groups following a harmonised design stratified by age (18–40; 41–65) and education (ISCED low vs high). Groups were mixed by gender and political orientation to stimulate interaction and collective reasoning. Sessions followed a shared discussion guide structured around three thematic blocks: democracy, gender equality, and feminism. Data collection combined open discussion with participatory techniques such as silent brainstorming and self-assigned sentiment markers. Transcripts were analysed using a mixed qualitative strategy integrating lexical analysis, sentiment analysis, and reflexive thematic analysis to ensure both cross-national comparability and interpretive depth. All transcripts have been fully anonymised. No personal identifiers are included. Ethical approval for cross-national data collection and processing was granted by the University of Valencia Ethics Committee for Research in Humans (Ref. 2024-SOCTUR-3392951; PI: Jorge Garcés Ferrer). All focus group transcripts have been fully anonymised, with direct and indirect identifiers removed, and are therefore released as open access data for non-commercial academic research.