Mixed Methods in criminological research: Challenges and models

Abstract

In the last 20 – 30 years, in social sciences new models of planning the research activity and of treating the data, characterized
by the use of so – called “mixed methods”, have allowed to go beyond the debate between the supporters of qualitative and of
quantitative methods. This theoretical – methodological paper reviews the literature and outlines some interesting challenges,
which criminology could take into account: starting from the consideration of the multimethodological approach as a mental
model, the paper examines the prevailing opinion, that views the qual-quant integration simply as a methodological issue, and
tries to go further, describing a particular approach (QCA) in which qual- and quant- are irremediably mixed, that could be
considered fruitful for criminological research, in which the mixed methods approach has been scarcely considered.