- Title
- The values of citizenship in a cooperative classroom: early career teachers' perspectives
- Creator
- Ferguson-Patrick, Kate
- Relation
- The Social Educator Vol. 26, Issue 3, p. 11-18
- Relation
- http://www.afssse.asn.au/seaa
- Publisher
- The Social Educators' Association of Australia
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2008
- Description
- The explicit teaching of cooperative skills should become an integral part of teachers' pedagogy to encourage our students to become multi-dimensional citizens, as well as encourage our students to have a 'communicative capacity' and take 'communicative action' (Habermas 1984; 1987, as cited in Lovat and Toomey, 2007). 'Multi-dimensional citizenship' centres on joint social and public action demonstrating that "citizens must be able to work and interact with other people in a variety of settings and contexts.. . as well as ... deal respectfully with people whose ideas and values differ from their own" (Cogan, Grossman, & Mei-Hui-Lui, 2000, p.51). Our young citizens- our children-need to work together in cooperation and be able to share viewpoints as well as learn to deal with others' ideas respectfully. Cooperative learning helps students to develop ideas and practices about the need to be critical and reflective about the multiplicity of viewpoints in their nation and throughout the world- it thus enables multidimensional citizenship. This research paper analyses the responses of six teachers during initial semi-structured interviews conducted as a part of a wider research project. Teacher responses were analysed according to their initial understandings of cooperative learning and its relationship to good pedagogy, as well as to ascertain any links these early career teachers made between this and multidimensional citizenship. These interviews were administered before the teachers' embarked on a journey of implementing cooperative learning practices into their classrooms. Although most of the early career teachers were aware of both the pedagogical and social benefits of using cooperative learning, they did not use it often but were aware of its benefits for their students. The implications of the study show the need for an increased focus on cooperative learning through professional learning.
- Subject
- citizenship; communicative capacity; communicative action; cooperative learning
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/43565
- Identifier
- uon:5651
- Identifier
- ISSN:1328-3480
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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