Changing perspectives: Validation framework review of examples of mixed methods research into culturally relevant teaching

Mixed methods research becomes more utilized in education research every year. As this pluralist paradigm begins to take hold, it becomes more and more necessary to take a critical eye to studies making use of different mixed methods approaches. An area of education research that has yet struggled to find a foothold with mixed methodology is social justice. Due to the typically unpredictable nature and level of involvement in these environments, it seems that researchers have struggled to find a way to bring social justice education research into the "third paradigm." In this manuscript, I have reviewed three exemplar studies which both used mixed methodology and approached the research in education with a social justice framework, particularly culturally relevant teaching and critical race theory. In so doing, I have draw upon common traits which indicate work still needing to be done to fully integrate mixed methods approaches with this sort of research. I offer suggestions, including the use of critical dialectical pluralism, to address some of these needs as well as call on more attempts at fully mixing data in education social justice research.