ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the social context in which the children made their accounts. It discusses the social location of children which shapes the context of the talk. The chapter also discusses those aspects of the children's world which keep them separate from the adult world and the effect of this separateness on adult-child interaction. It examines the ways in which people cue into each other's worlds. The chapter focuses on the social skills and understandings that the children brought to bear on, first, the We-relationship itself, and second, their analysis of, or talk about their interactions with other people in their everyday world. Children have little choice about adopting some elements of the adult world. Adults structure the world in ways that appear external and inevitable to children. Reciprocity is an essential part of the person's social world – his world is built up out of the actions of others towards himself and his understanding of those actions.
