Hypothetical situations as a pedagogical resource in social studies and history lessons at primary school

This study explores teachers’ use of hypothetical situations (HSs) in primary school classrooms and aims to generate new insights into the facilitation of student participation. Several studies using HSs to get the interlocutor to imagine a hypothetical scenario have shown the importance of HSs in various interactional contexts. However, no previous study has focused on exploring the interactional details of HSs in the primary school classroom. We investigated 17 h of Turkish social studies and 26 h of Dutch history lessons interactions using conversation analysis as the research method. The analysis focuses on the types of hypothetical situations raised and the organization of the ensuing interaction. We identified two different types of HSs: (1) possible events-oriented HSs, where students are oriented to discussing situations that may occur (to them) in the future; and (2) actual events-oriented HSs, where students discuss situations that have happened to others in the past while imagining themselves in that situation. Regarding the interactional organization of the HSs, our analysis identifies particular practices employed to invite further responses and to follow up on the initial responses. The findings illustrate that the use of HSs in a primary school classroom context may provide opportunities for students to participate in a classroom discourse that reaches further than the direct here-and-now within the classroom setting.