Cooperative learning and racial and ethnic relations

SIGNIFICANCE: Cooperative learning refers to a variety of ways that individuals work together to produce or obtain some defined goal. Teaching methods in general, and cooperative learning techniques in particular, have implications for different racial and ethnic groups and for intergroup relations.

Cooperative learning involves working in small groups toward some desired end. Groups, in and of themselves, do not have to be cooperative, but in cooperative learning, group members depend on one another to receive benefits. Cooperative learning methods can be contrasted with competitive methods, which have individuals work against one another to reach a goal, and individualistic methods, which encourage each person to work toward a goal without regard for the performance or behaviors of others.

Jigsaw

One of the first structured cooperative learning techniques, termed “jigsaw,” was developed by social psychologist Elliot Aronson and his colleagues. Aronson envisioned an academic environment in which a heterogeneous mix of students could achieve success and learn to appreciate one another through equal-status contact. In jigsaw, students are placed in small groups that mix characteristics such as race, gender, and ability. The teacher assigns a common task, such as learning about Christopher Columbus, to the entire class. The assignment is broken down into subtopics. For example, the assignment on Columbus might include a review of Columbus’s early life, information on his voyages, a description of life in and around America when Columbus set sail, and a review of Columbus’s later life. Each student in a group assumes responsibility for one of the subtopics of the assignment. Students then meet with members from other groups who share the same subtopic. At this point, students have formed new, specialized groups in which individuals with the same information can help one another master the subtopic. Afterward, the members of the specialized groups return to their original groups to teach the material they have mastered and to learn the information on the other subtopics from other group members. Achievement is measured by testing students individually on all the information for the assignment. Jigsaw also includes extensive team-building and communication-training activities.

Although Aronson and his colleagues had high expectations for the cognitive and social benefits of jigsaw, reviews of the effects have been mixed. Cooperative learning methods that have emphasized group rewards over the individual rewards associated with jigsaw have shown more consistent benefits for learners. For example, Robert Slavin and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University have developed several successful group-reward cooperative learning methods including STAD, student teams-achievement divisions, and TGT, teams-games-tournament. In STAD, the teacher presents a lesson, and students study worksheets in small, heterogeneous groups. Afterward, students take individual quizzes. Group scores are computed based on how much each group member improves over previous performance and are reported in a class newsletter. TGT differs by having group members compete against members of other teams with similar records of past performance; group scores are based on the competition.

Other Methods

Two techniques developed by other research teams, learning together and group investigation, also use group rewards. Learning together emphasizes the development of social skills such as trust, conflict resolution, and accurate communication. Students work together to complete a single piece of work and are rewarded for working cooperatively and for task performance. In group investigation, small groups of students choose topics from a unit the class is studying. Group members then choose a subtopic for each member to investigate. Like jigsaw, group investigation uses task specialization. Unlike jigsaw, in group investigation, group members work together to prepare a presentation on their work for the entire class and are rewarded for group work.

Taken together, the various cooperative learning methods illustrate that there are benefits to cooperative learning methods over traditional competitive or individualistic approaches to instruction. Cooperative learning is also credited with increasing positive social interactions. Researchers report greater interaction between members of different racial or ethnic groups, greater acceptance of mainstreamed students, and greater friendship among students. Teachers and students in cooperative classrooms report more positive attitudes toward school. Finally, students in cooperative learning studies often show increased levels of self-esteem.

Racial Differences: The Riverside Project

Because of the clear relevance of cooperative learning techniques for the education of children, cooperative strategies have been investigated in a number of long-term school projects. A good example is the Riverside Cooperative Learning Project. One part of the project involved training student teachers in cooperative learning techniques and evaluating the effects of the training on their students. Elementary school student teachers were randomly assigned to either a traditional classroom structure, a STAD-structured classroom, or a TGT-structured classroom. STAD was considered the purest example of cooperative learning in the study because TGT contains a competitive element; in that group, members compete against members of other groups in order to gain points for their own group (team). Thus, TGT is more like a combination of cooperation and competition. TGT is still considered to be more of a cooperative method than the traditional classroom, which is oriented toward competitive and individualistic activities.

The gains that students made academically under the three classroom structures varied in the Riverside project based on the race of the students. African American students made the greatest gains in the STAD classroom, the classroom considered to be the clearest example of cooperative learning. Students of European descent did best in the TGT (cooperative-competitive) structured classroom. Mexican American students made the most gains in the traditional classroom. These results are important because they add support to the belief that some of the racial differences that occur in performance in schools may be related to culturally different preferences for one type of classroom structure over another.

In this study, the authors were surprised that the Mexican American students did not do better in the cooperative classrooms, since studies on ethnic differences suggested that Mexican American culture is oriented toward cooperation over competition. The Mexican American children in the Riverside project, however, were third-generation Americans with little knowledge of Spanish. Before the study began, they tested like the Euro-American students in terms of cooperation; the African American students, on the other hand, tested higher than the Mexican American and the Euro-American students on cooperation. Knowing which classroom structure will be best for a student, then, is not as simple as determining the student’s racial or ethnic heritage.

Classroom climate was more positive in the cooperative classrooms than in the traditional classroom, particularly for the Mexican American and African American students. Cooperativeness was higher among students in cooperative classrooms, and students in cooperative classes were more democratic in choosing friends. Schools that want to emphasize social change, then, might prefer cooperative learning methods. Yet although cooperative techniques seemed better overall, the Riverside project also demonstrated that a variety of classroom structures may be necessary in schools to optimize performance for a majority of students.

Workforce Implications

Cooperative learning methods have also been investigated in laboratory studies with adult learners. Such studies are important for understanding the extent of the effects of cooperative learning methods and for evaluating whether they might be useful with older students and with materials that might be found in work environments. If the effects of cooperative methods on achievement transfer to work environments, employers might begin to train people differently and increase job performance. If the effects of cooperative methods on social interactions transfer, employers might improve organizational climates and also enhance job performance. Since the workforce is becoming more diversified, information on reactions to cooperative learning methods by different groups of people should be beneficial. A diversified environment also puts increased pressure on organizations to determine the best ways to get people to work together for increased productivity.

Studies on adults have suggested that cooperative learning benefits can be obtained with dyads; individual accountability and external rewards may not be as critical as they are in the school setting, and personality differences and the type of material being learned may be more important.

Bibliography

Aronson, Elliot. Cooperation in the Classroom: The Jigsaw Method. 2nd ed. London: Printer, 2011. Print.

Aronson, Elliot, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert. Social Psychology. Upd. ed. Harlow: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Hummel, Brian. "What Is Cooperative Learning and How Does It Work?" CEV, 18 June 2024, www.icevonline.com/blog/what-is-cooperative-learning-and-how-does-it-work. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025. 

Kagan, S., et al. “Classroom Structural Bias: Impact of Cooperative and Competitive Classroom Structures on Cooperative and Competitive Individuals and Groups.” Learning to Cooperate, Cooperating to Learn. Ed. Robert E. Slavin, et al. New York: Plenum, 1985. Print.

Schul, James E. "Revisiting an Old Friend: The Practice and Promise of Cooperative Learning for the Twenty-First Century." Social Studies 102.2 (2011): 88–93. Education Research Complete. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.

Slavin, Robert E. Cooperative Learning: Theory and Research. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Print.