Conclusion: embracing diverse cultural contexts and interdisciplinary approaches to qualitative research with children across nations

The chapters in this book provide insights into qualitative research, through the presentation of chapters from 14 research teams, all contributing to the multinational CUWB network project Children’s Understandings of Well- being: Global and Local Contexts. This book documents and presents a unique collection of research experiences in implementing a shared protocol, with flexibility that allows for adjustments in diverse sociocultural contexts in ways that inform us of the diversity of, and issues in, current real-world research with children. The reporting of research on child well-being in this book focuses specifically on challenges in undertaking this comparative qualitative research with children across nations. By sharing their challenges, considerations and reflections on a range of issues and factors that researchers experienced and were confronted by in their individual research settings, the chapter contributors have presented the realities of doing ‘real-world’ research with children, outlining the pragmatic strategies required to deal with issues as they arise in the field. The authors have reflected on how they responded to the specific challenges they experienced during phases of project planning, active engagement in fieldwork, and data analysis, including the need to deviate from their initial plans at all of these stages. They have explained how they often had to adjust their research strategies to be able to draw conclusions ethically, with greater methodological robustness and analytical precision, and outlined the lessons learned in the process.