The aim of our empirical study (cp. Meyer/Kunze/Trautmann, 2007) was to find out about subjective theories, processes and obstacles of student participation in several domains in German sixth-form classrooms. In a qualitative approach, we interviewed nine teachers of English, History and Physics, recorded about 100 lessons, analysed selected teaching sequences with conversational analysis tools and asked the students about their perspective on the teaching and learning process. Having completed the empirical analysis, our objective for this symposium will be to test the validity of our interpretations of specific cases using the JATD categories (cp. Meyer, 2012). In one of our examples, the teacher asks the students what culture is, and one of them, Anna, says that unavoidably, war has to be included in the culture concept. In her interview after class, the teacher comments this episode saying that she would have punished Anna for her inadequate suggestion if there had not been a video camera running. The example shows a problematic participation structure. It will be analyzed using two theories, the one used by us in the participation project and JATD, showing that both theories have to cope with the problem that teacher and students may be unsuccessful in their negotiation of meaning.