The advancement in comparative educational research has brought forth challenges and opportunities for countries like China and India. This paper identifies the issues in these countries that the researchers have encountered in researching teachers’ career motivation in special and inclusive education and children’s learning difficulties. As their research is still at the beginning stage, this paper focuses on the contextualisation of the diverse and also similar educational provisions. The researchers deploy mixed methods designs of questionnaire surveys, in-depth interviews, field observations and document scrutiny for data triangulation. As a low priority is currently attached in their research areas, there is limited literature and professional understanding of special and inclusive education. Challenges and opportunities are discussed by using the emerging research issues to provide examples with an appreciation of the ethics of researching across cultures. The exploration of the critical topics is to illuminate the policies, theories and practices in special and inclusive education in China and India.