Chapter 9: Learning Through Collaboration: Is There a Multicultural Perspective?

This chapter will explore some recent work on children’s collaborative problem solving and trace the studies that have examined social interaction between children as they work together through examining the characteristics the children bring to bear on the collaboration (Garton, 2004). Much of this work demonstrates the benefits to learning of working together, and the implications are clear for classroom practices. But, not all learning takes place in classrooms, and children do learn, from an early age, from an “adult or more capable peer” (Vygotsky, 1978). In many Indigenous cultures, children work closely with adults and observe their everyday behavior. In other Indigenous cultures, children are segregated from adults and are free to make their own decisions. In yet other, mainly Westernized (industrialized, educated) societies, children are segregated but are explicitly taught and provided with instructions and directions. All require collaboration to be effective. The value of these different approaches to learning will be explored as a reminder of the need for psychology researchers to accommodate different cultural values and practices.