The pragmatic approach for studying social interaction in educational sciences has become popular. It aims at grasping the most influential variables that bring about the change in learners’ behaviour and thinking. Furthermore learning results per se are not the primary focus of the investigation, but the learning processes. The significance of the concepts such as inter-subjectivity and communication are emphasized, and language constitutes the elementary base of inquiry (Siljander 2005, Vanderstraeten and Biesta 2006).

In our multidisciplinary research project private forest consultation represents the educational setting of the social interaction. Current family forest owning in Europe is faced with several challenges (Wiersum et al. 2005). The change in land owner profile means that more and more land and forest owners are townies living far away from their property with virtually no previous connection to rural work. Simultaneously new land use demands, such as tourism and biodiversity protection, enter private property, and land owners’ voluntary activities are called for. All this brings about challenges for traditional forestry consultation: land owners will need better pluralistic support, advice and education in managing their forests.

Forestry consultation as such equals to instruction situation, where the roles of the tutor/mentor and of the student exist. Forestry consultant represents expertise, to whom family forest owner turns to with forest management issues. Hujala and Tikkanen (2008) recognised various factors that restrain smooth collaborative communication in current forestry consultation. They argue that only by transparent and owner-orientated communication services the current problems can be overcome. This development challenge calls for in-depth analysis of real-life communication with forest owners.

According to Vanderstraeten and Biesta (2006) human communication inherently carries all sorts of meanings, which are actively interpreted and ascribed tosomething. When receiving information one does not give up one’s own perspective, but tries to find a sufficiently similar way to see the world, in order to achieve something by this common activity. When interacting ‘we continuously make minor adjustments in our own understandings, our own ways of responding, our own ways of seeing’ (Vanderstraeten and Biesta 2006, 166). Furthermore, by communicating we make things common, and construct shared understanding of the subject in question in the course of an interaction (Stahl 2004). This shared understanding is called ‘the common ground’. The common ground is assumed to be constructed and found in the course of the communication between the collaborators (Baker et al. 1999). In our paper we analyse current forestry consultation practices with the following research questions: 1) how do the participants produce, maintain and/or renew intersubjectivity about what they are doing, and 2) how is the consultation discussion constructed? (Alasuutari 2004.)

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