Call for Papers for a Special Issue on Queer Approaches to Mixed Methods Research

Abstract

Special issues about mixed methods research demonstrate its “development, recognition, and professionalization” (Molina-Azorin & Guetterman, 2023, p. 234). In a recent editorial, coeditors-in-chief José Molina-Azorin and Timothy Guetterman (2023) identified several existing special issues that discuss specific methodological features and innovations in mixed methods research or share applications of mixed methods within specific disciplines. However, none of the special issues outlined in their editorial focused on using a specific theoretical framework with a mixed methods approach. Instead, there are various articles, chapters, and books about applying theories to mixed methods such as Critical Race Theory (DeCuir-Gunby & Schutz, 2018; DeCuirGunby & Walker-DeVose, 2013), postcolonial Indigenous paradigms (Chilisa & Tsheko, 2014), Chicana feminist theory (Garcia & Ramirez, 2021) and feminist theory in general (Hesse-Biber, 2012), and complexity theory (Poth, 2018), among others. Mixed methods scholars have indicated that as a field we need to investigate the affordances, challenges, and methodological innovations that using theoretical perspectives might promote (Hesse-Biber & Johnson, 2013; Mertens, 2010). Rigorous mixed methods research includes a description of the theoretical grounding in framing the research problem, questions, and context as well as the research design, procedures, and practices (Levitt et al., 2018). Therefore, there is a need for researchers to contextualize their mixed methods processes (Plano Clark & Ivankova, 2016) within specific theoretical frameworks and more examples of such applications. The purpose of this Special Issue is to collect innovative theorizations and applications of queer mixed methods research.Queer mixed methods research refers to “a queering of the methods used in mixed methods research and a queering of the methodology itself” (Shannon-Baker, 2021, p. 590). To queer methods refers to using queer theories to influence specific research practices or procedures, whereas to queer methodologies refers to using queer theories to interrogate research