This paper discusses the ‘telling case’ and the manner and extent of its use in social research. The ‘telling case’, proposed by Mitchell as a counter to prevailing expectations of typicality, is an ethnographic case study, derived from analytic induction and focused on the exposure of new theoretical insights. By means of an evaluation of the available literature this paper summarises Mitchell’s construal of the ‘telling case’ before examining how it has been exploited by others. The evidence suggests that while authors acknowledge the source of the ‘telling case’ few offer any substantial acknowledgement of Mitchell’s conceptualisation, indicating that most ‘telling case’ research has employed Mitchell’s name somewhat disingenuously and contributed to the growth of a methodological myth. Moreover, despite its international spread, its origins seem located in the work of a small number of internationally recognised scholars and the mobility of their former graduate students.

This paper outlines the iterative processes by which a multinational team of researchers developed a low‐inference framework for the analysis of video recordings of mathematics lessons drawn from Flemish Belgium, England, Finland, Hungary and Spain. Located within a theoretical framework concerning learning as the negotiation of meaning, we discuss problems of linguistic and conceptual equivalence and the manner by which they were resolved. Significantly, when compared with the time‐stamped codes of projects like the TIMSS video studies, we argue that the unit of analysis adopted, the episode, allowed for the distinctive patterns of a lesson to be retained for comparison with others. Also, we suggest that the framework’s generic, though subject‐focused, codes are amenable to adaptation to other curriculum areas, thus providing an opportunity for the comparative study of subjects not normally associated with work of this nature.

This paper reports an interview study of 45 English and 10 Hungarian teachers of mathematics. The semi‐structured interviews focused on the teachers’ professional life‐histories and invited them to discuss their beliefs about the necessary subject content for the teaching and learning of mathematics. Substantial differences emerged between the two cohorts, which accord with well‐defined national perspectives on education in general and mathematics education in particular. They reflect, at national rather than individual levels, the expectations of the curricular frameworks within which teachers operate. English teachers tended to view mathematics as applicable number and the means by which learners are prepared for a world beyond school. Hungarian teachers privileged mathematics as problem‐solving and logical thinking.