This paper draws on findings from a case study of a German language lesson at a primary school in Frankfurt/Main, Germany carried out in March 2017 (Hudson et al., 2017). A central aim was to address the challenge of UN Sustainable Development Goal number 4 (United Nations, 2015), to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all. With regard to ensuring equitable access to quality education, we argue that there is a need to consider the epistemic quality (Hudson, 2018) of what students come to know, make sense of and be able to do in school. This idea originates from a study on mathematical thinking in the primary school (Hudson, 2015) and arises from the analysis of the epistemic game that is referred by Loquet (2011, p287) as “part of the “language games” (Wittgenstein, 1997) specific to didactics systems”. A key question related to the school context, is whether the knowledge to be studied represents knowledge for acting and solving problems in the social and cultural contexts in which it was created and authentically used, in such a way that preserves its meaning. In order to study what connects or disconnects school practices and cultural practices, in terms of their "essential" meaning (Loquet, 2017), we distinguish between high and low epistemic quality across school contents. For example, high epistemic quality in mathematics can be characterized by creative reasoning, critical thinking and problem solving in contrast to low epistemic quality involving an over-emphasis on memorised reasoning, rule following and rote learning (Hudson, 2018). Data collection involved joint observation, video recording and individual notes based on observations. Key aspects of the lesson observations were shared orally immediately following the observation and written notes soon after. This process led to the identification of significant episodes in the lesson for deeper analysis through a process of progressive focussing as part of an “emergent method” approach. The study focuses on the epistemic quality of the language games during the teacher–student interaction of a particular lesson sequence involving a quiz. In order to describe and understand the epistemic quality involved in the quiz (Wegner, 2016), the quiz interactions are described and analysed through Bildungsgangforschung and -didaktik, i.e. research on learner development and educational experience (Wegner, 2016). Finally, the paper makes links with wider contemporary debates regarding “powerful knowledge” in schools (Young and Muller, 2010).

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