The present article selectively reviews the large number of recent studies that have been described as based on mixed methods. I begin by discussing a body of work that has emerged to promote mixed methods research across the social sciences. I then review and critique empirical studies in each of two general approaches to mixed methods: mixed data–collection studies, which combine two or more kinds of data; and mixed data–analysis studies, which combine two or more analytical strategies, examine qualitative data with quantitative methods, or explore quantitative data with qualitative techniques. I argue that, although mixed methods research is by no means new, empirical studies today combine methods in more diverse and, at times, innovative ways. Nevertheless, important methodological tensions will likely surface as the research becomes more self-reflexive.

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Today, ethnographers and qualitative researchers in fields such as urban poverty, immigration, and social inequality face an environment in which their work will be read, cited, and assessed by demographers, quantitative sociologists, and even economists. They also face a demand for case studies of poor, minority, or immigrant groups and neighborhoods that not only generate theory but also somehow speak to empirical conditions in other cases (not observed). Many have responded by incorporating elements of quantitative methods into their designs, such as selecting respondents `at random' for small, in-depth interview projects or identifying `representative' neighborhoods for ethnographic case studies, aiming to increase generalizability. This article assesses these strategies and argues that they fall short of their objectives. Recognizing the importance of the predicament underlying the strategies — to determine how case studies can speak empirically to other cases — it presents two alternatives to current practices, and calls for greater clarity in the logic of design when producing ethnographic research in a multi-method intellectual environment.

▪ Abstract  In what follows we critically assess a selection of the works on urban poverty that followed the publication of WJ Wilson's The Truly Disadvantaged ( 1987 ), with a particular focus on the family, the neighborhood, and culture. We frame our discussion by assessing the broad explanations of the increased concentration of poverty in urban neighborhoods characteristic of the 1970s and 1980s. Then, in the section on the family, we address the rising out-of-wedlock and disproportionately high teenage birthrates of poor urban women. Next, we critique the literature on neighborhood effects. Finally, in the discussion of culture, we examine critically the new efforts at complementing structural explanations with cultural accounts. We conclude by calling for more comparative, cross-regional, and historical studies, broader conceptions of urban poverty, and a greater focus on Latinos and other ethnic groups.

SignificanceLiving in disadvantaged neighborhoods is widely assumed to undermine life chances because residents are isolated from neighborhoods with greater resources. Yet, residential isolation may be mitigated by individuals spending much of their everyday lives outside their home neighborhoods, a possibility that has been difficult to assess on a large scale. Using new methods to analyze urban mobility in the 50 largest American cities, we find that residents of primarily black and Hispanic neighborhoods—whether poor or not—are far less exposed to either nonpoor or white middle-class neighborhoods than residents of primarily white neighborhoods. Although residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods regularly travel as far and to as many different neighborhoods as those from advantaged neighborhoods, their relative isolation and segregation persist.

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Current theories of how individuals in poor neighborhoods access information and resources have focused primarily on social ties, with concepts such as social isolation dominating discussion. But these theories ignore that individuals often access resources through interorganizational ties. The author suggests that an important role of neighborhood institutions such as churches and childcare centers is to serve as resource brokers-organizations that have ties to businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies rich in resources and that provide their patrons with access to these resources. This article presents a set of propositions to understand how and why neighborhood institutions broker resources and applies these propositions to a case study of 16 childcare centers in high poverty neighborhoods in New York City. The author argues that resource brokers may be understood as interorganizationally networked, loosely coupled entities whose actors respond to pressures of multiple origins, including professional norms and state mandates. He shows that, through mechanisms that vary in their formality and staff dependence, childcare centers provide access to a remarkable array of resources from external organizations. Findings suggest that resource access among the poor should be understood as an organizationally embedded process, and that true disadvantage may result not merely from living in poor neighborhoods, but from not participating in well-connected neighborhood institutions. How do residents of poor neighborhoods access valuable resources, such as information about schools? Poverty scholars have demonstrated that one of the most important ways is through their social ties. However, they have largely neglected the significance of organizational ties-the ties of the neighborhood institutions in which the residents participate. Neighborhood institutions, such as churches, recreation centers, and childcare centers, are primarily organizations, and as such, they maintain ties to other organizations through which resources are exchanged. Some of these resources may benefit the patrons of the neighborhood institutions, making the ties useful to the poor or the socially isolated (Wilson 1987, 1996). In this respect, neighborhood institutions may perform the role of resource brokers , organizations possessing ties to businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies rich in resources, which then provide the neighborhood institutions' patrons with access to these resources (Chaskin et al. 2001). Recent scholarship has noted this phenomenon, which is tied to the high, and arguably increasing, collaboration among organizations in the private and public and the for-profit and nonprofit sectors (

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