Cooperative Learning, a path to educational inclusion

Abstract

Attention to diversity has turned into one of the basic element of the educational systems of many countries. The educational answers that have generated in schools, those which understand diversity as an enriching value of the educational process, have led to very different models. Internationally, there is a movement that defends the necessity to promote inclusive models, that understand difference as an opportunity to learn together, and places methodology as one of the basic pillars of the teaching and learning process. In this sense, learning based in cooperation presents itself as an alternative proposal to work at school. Different investigations carried out during the last years bring forward the main contributions of the cooperative work in the acquisition of values and attitudes that improve coexistence at the same time that facilitate a better personal development of all the students. Our work in primary and secondary school has allowed us to think about and collect information and our experience around the attention to diversity in the frame of a school that aims to walk towards inclusion. The present article presents a reflection on the contributions of the cooperative learning inside a school that looks for the inclusion of all the boys and girls, relying on our own professional experiences as well as on the analysis and interpretation of the main contributions collected in the national and international bibliography.