Arts and Mixed Methods Research for Social Inclusion

Abstract

Over the past 50 years, the field of mixed methods research has undergone considerable development and expansion. While there have been concurrent advances and applications of arts-based research, there has been comparably little development at the intersection of these methodologies. However, the diverse fields of arts-based research and mixed methods research reflect similar underlying values pertaining to the strengths of integrating multiple ways of knowing, and a recent conceptualization of arts-mixed methods research has been offered in the literature. The argument made in this chapter is that this methodological merger has potential to foster socially inclusive research with real life impacts. Building off of this conceptualization, in this chapter, the author discusses arts-mixed methods research as a unique research approach with marked suitability for socially inclusive research. The author describes alignments between an arts-mixed methods research approach and the transformative mixed methods paradigm and draws attention to considerations of inclusive research. The author then explores the current emphasis on the epistemological gains of arts and how more tacit and embodied perspectives can be of benefit to an arts-mixed methods conceptualization in the context of socially inclusive research. The author concludes the chapter with a discussion of power in relation to arts-mixed methods and research practices for social inclusion more generally, postulating a chain of influence between the appropriateness of research methods and the downstream impact of these methods on social inclusion.