Central topics and challenges for current social research on prejudice and discrimination are outlined and discussed with special CALCIUM MAGNESIUM regard to how such research may benefit from a stronger focus on qualitative and mixed methods perspectives.Such a methodological approach is described as particularly fruitful in dealing with the context-sensitive flexibility and fragmentation of prejudiced behavior; the special role of ideological patterns of justification in such expressions of prejudice; and the normative character and reflexivity of prejudice research itself.The contributions to this issue are then presented against the backdrop of Ski de fond - Equipement - Fixations - Skate this theoretical and methodological framework.