Abstract

This special issue of American Behavioral Scientist provides a cross-section of cutting-edge articles on the third methodological and philosophical movement com-monly known as “mixed methods ” or “mixed methods research ” (MMR), and our research community is fortunate that the issue contains articles written by many of the leading scholars in the field. The issue should provide a rich resource of the latest thinking about MMR as a broad methodology and the use of MMR across multiple disciplines. Readers can obtain a fuller overview of the special issue by quickly reading the abstracts, but let me provide a one-sentence description here for each article. The issue begins with Greene’s article, which calls on researchers to apply MMR to critical issues; this requires an awareness of self-in-inquiry and the complex and value-laden nature of MMR in contemporary social inquiry. In the second article, Teddlie and Tashakkori identify nine contemporary “core ” characteristics of MMR; one underly-ing or implicit characteristic is that MMR respects, appreciates, and relies on learning from differences and producing combinations that help multiple stakeholders. In the