The phrase, “the context of a situation,” helps
illustrate the relationship between contexts and situations. A context is somehow larger than a
situation and may consist of a variety of situations; different contexts may have different possible
types of situations. A situation may be characterized as a set of related activities, or a set of
related stories, that occur over time. That is, we can characterize or describe situations by
actions or behavior that occur over time, and which are perceived as being connected by
participants and/or outsiders. For example, when explaining actions that occur among people
working together on a project or in an organization, phrases such as “The situation is…”; “The
situation in a nutshell is…”; “In this situation…”; and “That’s the situation” are commonly used in
introducing and concluding the explanation.