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Diversity among students will increase in most schools in most countries. Such diversity is an opportunity that can have positive or negative consequences. Which one results depends on the type of interdependence structured among students. There are three types of interdependence: Cooperative, competitive, and individualistic. Each has an implicit value structure that is taught as a hidden curriculum. Competition teaches the values of beating and getting more than other people to be successful, obstructing the work of others, feeling happy when other people fail, seeing others as a threat to oneís success, viewing worth as contingent on wins, and viewing those who are different in negative ways. Individualistic efforts teachers the values of viewing success as dependent on oneís own efforts, seeing others as irrelevant to oneís success, and viewing diverse others in negative ways. Cooperation teaches the values of committing oneself to the common good, seeing success as depending on the efforts of all collaborators, feeling happy when others succeed, seeing others as resources to help one succeed, viewing worth as unconditional, and viewing diverse others in positive ways. While competitive, individualistic, and cooperative efforts should all three be part of schooling, cooperation is by far the most necessary if diversity is to result in positive outcomes. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning. Cooperative learning experiences are based on students' perceiving that they sink or swim together and that they must provide face-to-face help and support, do their fair share of the work, provide leadership and resolve conflicts constructively, and periodically process how to improve the effectiveness of the group. There is considerable evidence that students will learn more, use higher level reasoning strategies more frequently, build more complete and complex conceptual structures, and retain information learned more accurately when they learn within cooperative groups than when they study competitively or individualistically. Much of the information about different cultural and ethnic heritages cannot be attained through reading books. Only through knowing, working with, and personal interactions with members of diverse groups can students really learn to value diversity, utilize it for creative problem solving, and develop an ability to work effectively with diverse peers. While information alone helps, it is only through direct and personal interaction among diverse individuals who develop personal as well as professional relationships with each other that such outcomes are realized. Understanding the perspective of others from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds requires more than information. It requires the personal sharing of viewpoints and mutual processing of situations. In addition, in order to identify with and internalize the values inherent in the society as a whole, students must work cooperatively with others, build personal and committed relationships with peers who are committed to a superordinate identity as members of the same society. There is considerable evidence that cooperative experiences, compared with competitive and individualistic ones, promote more positive, committed, and caring relationships regardless of differences in ethnic, cultural, language, social class, gender, ability, or other differences. Finally, if the discords of diverse students meeting in the school are to be transformed into a symphony, students need a positive self-view, the psychological health to face conflict and challenge, and the social competencies required to work effectively with diverse peers. Personal and superordinate identities are developed through group processes. It takes membership in cooperative groups to develop a personal identity, an ethnic identity, an identity as a citizen of a society, and an identity as a world citizen. There is considerable evidence that working cooperatively increases students' self-esteem and psychological health, their ability to act independently and exert their autonomy, their interpersonal and small-group skills, and their understanding of interdependence and cooperative efforts. Diversity can fulfill its promise rather than be a problem when learning situations and schools are structured cooperatively. This begins with diverse students being brought together in the same classroom, the teacher using cooperative learning procedures the majority of the time, the principal organizing teachers into colleagial support groups aimed at increasing their expertise in using cooperative learning and working together as a team, and the superintendent organizing administrators into colleagial support groups aimed at increasing their expertise in leading a cooperative school and working together as a team. Such a cooperative organizational structure will result in diversity enhancing learning and in creating a shared superordinate identity as American and at an even higher level, world citizen. |
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