In this article we explore and discuss the benefits of and the challenges that arise when using qualitative methods to conduct research internationally. We firstly discuss the relationship that writers of qualitative studies have with their readers and the implications of this for writing style. This is then followed by an overview of different aspects of data collection design. Within this section we discuss research that we have conducted, as part of a variety of international projects, using two qualitative approaches: systematic documentary research and interview. We then focus on using interview as a research method. This discussion regarding using interviews is divided into two chapters. Firstly, we discuss issues of access and sampling, then the interview itself and the analysis of interview data. The final sections involve a discussion of ways in which validity and reliability can be contextualised within qualitative studies, and also a discussion on generalisability and the possibility of theory generation. We conclude with sections on ethics and possible future directions for international qualitative studies into teacher education.

The story of vanishing hitchhiker “made in China”. Urban legend plot analysis in the perspective of comparative studies

This article provides an urban legend plot analysis in the perspective of comparative studies on the example of a popular story of vanishing hitchhiker. A comparative analysis was conducted using the original versions of this legend in the United States and the variants appearing in mainland China. Research on the variability of this story was first carried out in the 1940s by American folklorists, Richard Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey, which constitute the foundation for further analysis of Eastern themes of this legend. The Chinese versions of the story analyzed in this article were collected on the basis of author’s own field research, including ethnographic interviews and netnographic research. The field work was conducted in 2016–2018 in mainland China, with particular emphasis on Beijing, excluding special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China (Hong Kong and Macau) and Tibet.

Identity and attitudes of academic youth – a Polish-Czech comparative study

The article is a report on comparative studies carried out in the PolishCzech borderland in 2022–2023 among pedagogy students of Polish and Czech universities. The research was placed in the objectivist paradigm and the survey method was applied. The study was aimed at determining the sense of identity of young people, at learning about values, attitudes towards other nations and types of intergroup interactions taking place in the borderland. In order to check whether there are statistically significant differences between the groups in the responses to individual questions, the Mann-Whitney U test was used. In the context of the obtained results, it can be concluded that academic youth from the Polish and Czech parts of the borderland attribute significant importance to belonging to one biological species inhabiting the earth (no statistically significant differences between groups). Polish youth are similar to their peers living in the Czech Republic. The similarities pertain to identification in the system: person – gender – nationality, to positive attitude towards other nations and to values. There are statistically significant differences between the two cohorts in their attitudes towards individual nations and in their assessment of the types of social interactions occurring in the borderland. The specificity and differences have their sources in the sociocultural, political and economic situation of the country in which the young live and in the educational system to which they have been subjected. The future is a never-ending project that is constantly changing. Borderland research is the analysis of contexts in which the construction of the vision and the use of the realities of the existing social space take place. Research on academic youth provides information not only about its condition and the image of contemporary borderland, but also about its desired shape.

This article is focused on the role of comparative studies in searching for innovation and reform in the context of social rehabilitation. Comparative studies in social rehabilitation are not based on a clear-cut methodology of their conduction but borrow from comparative pedagogy even though the methodological ambiguity as well as the very subject of interest of social rehabilitation is different from that of other pedagogical studies. The article is an attempt to find the procedure of comparative studies by determining the subject of research and basic comparative categories as well as by developing an appropriate method of research.