Learning From Others: a Critical Intercultural Approach to Cooperative Learning

Teaching and learning constitute a dialogical relation which involves the teacher and the student in an experience that challenges the habitual boundaries of who teaches and who learns, who has the knowledge, and who needs to acquire it. The relationship between the two subjects is more dynamic and fluid than one would expect. Indeed, in the educational process the Other is one of the two people who are in such a relationship, so that the way in which they are interconnected, the position they (can) assume, and the power and the voice they have to define it, are all elements which give rise to the production of different knowledge and learning experiences. In this article we analyse how different positionings and stances impact on the educational process, and present how cooperative learning can favour a participatory and transformative pedagogy.