Intercultural Education, Volume 21 Issue 3 2010

Intercultural Education, Volume 21 Issue 3 2010
Cooperative Learning and Intercultural Education in Multicultural Societies: Critical Reflections

Editorial
Francesca Gobbo; George Jacobs; Isabella Pescarmona
Pages 189 – 193

Articles
Cooperative learning: a diversified pedagogy for diverse classrooms
Yael Sharan
Pages 195 – 203
As a generic and diversified pedagogy, cooperative learning (CL) reaches out to the field of intercultural education with an offer to establish a reciprocal relationship. After a short description of the diversity of CL and a brief exploration of the influence that culture has on learning, this paper depicts how the partnership between CL and intercultural education can help to create a culturally sensitive CL classroom, where learning is made relevant for all. Culturally responsive teaching implies using CL methods and strategies to discover the students' worlds and incorporate them into the world of the classroom.

Hope of cooperative learning: intentional talk in Albanian secondary school classrooms
Pasi Sahlberg
Pages 205 – 218
The notion of a knowledge society has led policy-makers and reformers to look for classroom practices that would lead to more productive learning in schools. Modern educational technologies are often thought to transform the traditional presentation-recitation mode of instruction into more participatory learning. This paper assumes that teaching for modern intercultural knowledge societies should rely on multilateral communication, students' ideas and social interaction. Based on observation data from 303 upper secondary school classrooms in randomly selected schools which were analysed using Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories, this study found that these basic conditions for productive teaching, such as cooperative learning were missing in most classrooms. These data suggest that typical secondary school lessons are dominated by teacher talk and that time for student-initiated talk is about 1% of total lesson time. This study also confirmed that classrooms provide a poor psychological and social environment to stimulate student initiation, participation or risk-taking. Therefore, unless the pattern of verbal interactions in classrooms is changed, cooperative learning will have difficulty taking root as part of secondary school culture.

Complex Instruction: managing professional development and school culture
Isabella Pescarmona
Pages 219 – 227
Complex Instruction (CI) is a comprehensive programme relating to curriculum development and instructional methodology, using multiple ability tasks and status interventions as key concepts. In 2006, at the end of a teacher training course, a group of primary school teachers decided to develop and experiment with original CI teaching units in their classrooms in Bologna and the surrounding province. The author developed a qualitative research project using ethnographic methodology to investigate and understand how this instructional innovation was proceeding and how it was being implemented by the Bologna teacher group. The paper critically reflects on the introduction of an alternative approach in an Italian context by examining how teachers did or did not reach new educational goals and how they coped with their schools' structural conditions (such as schedules, curriculum demands) as well as cultural factors (such as professional values). The paper discusses how the CI strategy was debated and interpreted by the teachers involved, and the barriers and opportunities for implementation.

Cooperative learning for educational reform in Armenia
Aleksan Hovhannisyan; Pasi Sahlberg
Pages 229 – 242
Armenia is in the midst of major educational reforms in which teacher professional development is a key component. Much of the energy devoted to developing education in Armenia is targeted towards enhancing student-centred teaching, especially cooperative learning. This has become a significant challenge for many schools and teachers as they cope with understanding, learning and adapting these approaches in their current work. This paper explores teachers' views and understanding of cooperative learning and then discusses how national education policies should address further implementation of cooperative learning in Armenian schools. Data were collected through a large-scale nationwide survey and focus-group interviews. Observations in training workshops on cooperative learning also constitute part of the data used in this study. The main finding is that most teachers believe that they have adequate knowledge and understanding of cooperative learning after attending the training workshops, but that only a few are able to integrate it as an active part of their pedagogical repertoire. This paper contributes to a currently weak research base on implementing cooperative learning in fragile educational contexts.

Cooperative learning as method and model in second-language teacher education
Carla Chamberlin-Quinlisk
Pages 243 – 255
This paper describes the integration of cooperative learning (CL) activities into a graduate teacher education course, Collaborative Teaching in English as a Second Language (ESL). Because teachers and researchers have both identified discipline status and relationship issues as challenges to collaboration, this course focused on relational dynamics such as respect, trust, reciprocity, and approachability as central to the successful implementation of collaborative practice. CL activities were integrated into the program to encourage ESL teachers to explore their own values and expectations for learning as well as their own communication styles which might facilitate or hinder collegiality. The research question asks how CL contributes to teachers' understanding of themselves as communicators, collaborators, and agents of change. From a qualitative analysis of observer notes, journal entries, classroom discussions, group activities, and autobiographies, this paper highlights how dimensions of CL can be used not only as methodology in second-language teacher education but also as a model for developing collaborative relationships between ESL and content-area teachers.

Cooperative learning – a double-edged sword: a cooperative learning model for use with diverse student groups
Trish Baker; Jill Clark
Pages 257 – 268
Although very little research has been done on cooperative learning (CL) in New Zealand, international research is positive about the educational benefits of working in culturally diverse groups. This paper presents the findings of a research project examining New Zealand experiences with CL in multicultural groups. Data were collected via surveys and focus groups with domestic and international students and with New Zealand tertiary lecturers who use CL techniques in their programmes. The findings indicate a strong cultural conflict in the conceptualization of CL between international students with little prior experience of CL and New Zealand lecturers who are often not trained to help international students to bridge the gaps between their past educational experiences and typical education practices in New Zealand. This conflict reinforces the importance of understanding cultural differences and their impact on student patterns of classroom behaviour. The authors recommend that domestic and international students be prepared more effectively for CL and that lecturers be trained in designing curricula and assessment programmes that are pedagogically sound and culturally accommodating. The paper proposes a model to assist lecturers to achieve this aim.

Theoretical framework for Cooperative Participatory Action Research (CPAR) in a multicultural campus: the social drama model
Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz; Tamar Zelniker; Faisal Azaiza
Pages 269 – 279
This paper describes a long-term research seminar, developed in 2001 by Hertz-Lazarowitz at the University of Haifa (UH). The goal of the seminar was to involve students in a meaningful, experiential and cooperative-interactive learning environment, based on topics relevant to their development as individuals coming from diverse collectives to the university campus, and to prepare them for life in an increasingly multicultural society. The seminar was based on the principles of the Participative Action Research and Group Investigation methods. The researchers aimed to create a model of learning, teaching, and action to bring awareness and enable change within the university's community, so that it could become a place of justice, equality, and recognition of the many cultural groups on campus. Since 2001, the Cooperative Participatory Action Research (CPAR) seminar has been offered to students through UH's Department of Education. This paper describes the theoretical framework and the stages and structures interwoven in the CPAR during its first eight years. The authors call on universities around the world to be committed to CPAR seminars within multicultural and conflict-ridden campuses so that social justice will become an essential part of students' experiences and action.

A dynamic conception of humanity, intercultural relation and cooperative learning
Khosrow Bagheri Noaparast; Zohreh Khosravi
Pages 281 – 290
The main focus of this paper relates to the conceptualizations of human identity and intercultural relations needed for cooperative learning (CL) to occur. At one extreme, some have argued that the relation between different cultures should be conceptualized in terms of incommensurability. At the other extreme, a standardization and unification along with the trend of globalization is supported at the peril of leaving pluralism aside. This paper argues that neither of the two extreme views can provide a satisfactory theoretical basis for CL at the intercultural level. Such a theoretical basis can be sought in providing a compromise between Donald Davidson's principle of charity and Gadamer's view of understanding in terms of fusion of horizons. Consequently, understanding is neither merely an inner nor an outer endeavour; rather it involves both. Cooperative learning in this framework implies that the material for learning is neither in the hands of the learner nor in those of the so-called 'teacher'. In fact, this material develops an intercultural relation by means of both poles of the relation. CL involves reciprocal support as well as reciprocal critique.