Aronson & Osherow, 1980: Promoting cooperation by learning and teaching materials to peers increased likeness, self-esteem, and academic performance and reduced racial biases among 5th-grade students
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Summary:
Restructured newly desegregated 5th grade classrooms to feature jigsaw groups, in which each child learns a portion of an assignment, has to teach and learn from other students, and then is tested on the whole. This procedure encourages cooperation rather than competition, requires children to behave in ways that are inconsistent with negative intergroup attitudes, and meet’s classic conditions for successful intergroup contact (sanctioned by authority, equal status, intergroup cooperation, common goals) (Allport, 1954). The procedure caused students to like each other more within and across ethnic lines, raised students’ self-esteem, led White and African American children (but not Latino children) to like school more, and improved academic test performance among African American and Latino children.