A Mixed Methods Approach to Equity and Justice Research

Adolescents’ conceptions of national wealth distribution: Connections with perceived societal fairness and academic plans.

“…More generally, mixed method research (Yoshikawa, Weisner, Kalil, & Way, 2008) is needed to clarify the meaning and stability of adolescents’ responses. Mixed approaches, which have already proven useful for studying adolescents’ conceptions of poverty and inequality (Mistry et al, 2016), may be especially suited for examining why adolescents’ and adults’ conceptions of societal economic resources are so weakly related to other societal and public policy views (Bartels, 2005; Norton et al, 2014).…”

“…Recent reviews (e.g., Flanagan, 2013; Mistry, White, Chow, Griffin, & Nenadel, 2016) have shown that children’s and adolescents’ thinking about these complex social issues are influenced both by their age group and social class. For example, a study of 12- to 19-year-olds’ explanations for the origins of wealth and poverty (Flanagan et al, 2014) found that older adolescents had more knowledge and complex understandings of both issues.…”

Humour, empathic concern and perspective‐taking in children. Cartooning about social inequality

“…As children develop, their beliefs become more complex and multifaceted. Adolescents reach a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of economic inequality and can attend to multiple causes of wealth and poverty (Flanagan et al, 2014; Mistry et al, 2016). For instance, Smart (2012) found that UK adolescents spoke of economic inequality in terms of rich and poor and explained them considering neoliberal ideas such as meritocracy, according to which inequality is a fair outcome of the poor and rich people's efforts or skills.…”

“…A last word on methodological designs is worth noting. As Mistry et al (2016) show in their review of research approaches related to equity and justice, quantitative approaches to explore children's and adolescents' conceptions of economic inequality have relied primarily on self‐administered surveys involving open‐ended or closed‐ended questions. In contrast, qualitative studies have mainly aimed at understanding children's views and experiences through open‐ended interviews.…”