ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the nature of learning in school by focusing on a teacher's question, albeit one which took up a whole lesson. The nature of the cultural resources required to answer teacher questions has implications both for what pupils must do in school in order to 'do well' in selection terms, and for what they might learn, for what 'world' they are being socialised into. A pupil provides the answer 'big' to the reformulated step question and the teacher feeds it back into the original question and asks the pupils if they think that's the right answer. At least one pupil indicates that he believes that it is, or might be, and the teacher asks for clarification of 'big'. In response a pupil tentatively offers long' and the teacher accepts that in a provisional way and asks for alternatives.
