Mixed methods, challenges of methodological integration in Social Sciences
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Abstract
The rapid expansion of mixed methods research has been accompanied by sustained theoretical reflection on both the potential and the challenges of integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches. This paper critically examines the reluctance to embrace integrative logics, arguing that mixed methods are increasingly being refined in diverse and innovative ways that move beyond rigid divisions between methods and paradigms conceived as unified blocks. It also highlights the continuity of mixed methods with earlier proposals for integration and considers the contributions of Ibero-American scholarship, as a prelude to reviewing emerging methodological trends that bring together distinct research traditions in original ways. The central claim is that methodological integration can advance without reducing the epistemological richness of each tradition, particularly in the study of today’s complex phenomena, which call for creative, interdisciplinary approaches grounded in methodological pluralism.
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