Influence: Science and Practice (36 page)

On the basis of evidence that we are more favorably disposed toward the things we have had contact with, some people have recommended a “contact” approach to improving race relations. They argue that, simply by providing individuals of different ethnic backgrounds with more exposure to one another as equals, those individuals will naturally come to like each other better. However, when scientists have examined school integration—the area offering the single best test of the contact approach—they have discovered quite the opposite pattern. School desegregation is more likely to increase prejudice between blacks and whites than to decrease it (Stephan, 1978).

Let’s stay with the issue of school desegregation for a while. However well intentioned the proponents of interracial harmony through simple contact are, their approach is unlikely to bear fruit because the argument on which it is based is terribly misinformed. First of all, research has shown that the school setting is not a melting pot where children interact as readily with members of other ethnic groups as they do with their own. Years after formal school integration, there is little social integration. The students clot together ethnically, separating themselves, for the most part, from other groups (Dixon et al., 2005; Oskamp & Schultz, 1998). Second, even if there were much more interethnic interaction, research shows that becoming familiar with something through repeated contact doesn’t necessarily cause greater liking (Gaertner et al., 1999). In fact, continued exposure to a person or object under unpleasant conditions such as frustration, conflict, or competition leads to less liking (Richeson & Shelton, 2007; Swap, 1977; Zajonc, Markus, & Wilson, 1974). The typical American classroom fosters precisely these unpleasant conditions.

Consider the illuminating report of psychologist Elliot Aronson, called in to consult with school authorities on problems in the Austin, Texas, schools. His description of the way he found education proceeding in the standard classroom could apply to nearly any public school in the United States:

In general, here is how it works: The teacher stands in front of the class and asks a question. Six to ten children strain in their seats and wave their hands in the teacher’s face, eager to be called on and show how smart they are. Several others sit quietly with eyes averted, trying to become invisible. When the teacher calls on one child, you see looks of disappointment and dismay on the faces of the eager students, who missed a chance to get the teacher’s approval; and you will see relief on the faces of the others who didn’t know the answer. . . . This game is fiercely competitive and the stakes are high, because the kids are competing for the love and approval of one of the two or three most important people in their world.

   
Further, this teaching process guarantees that the children will not learn to like and understand each other. Conjure up your own experience. If you knew the right answer and the teacher called on someone else, you probably hoped that he or she would make a mistake so that you would have a chance to display your knowledge. If you were called on and failed, or if you didn’t even raise your hand to compete, you probably envied and resented your classmates who knew the answer. Children who fail in this system become jealous and resentful of the successes, putting them down as teacher’s pets or even resorting to violence against them in the school yard. The successful students, for their part, often hold the unsuccessful children in contempt, calling them “dumb” or “stupid.” (Aronson, 1975, pp. 44, 47)

Should we wonder, then, why strict school desegregation—whether by enforced busing, district rezoning, or school closures—so frequently produces increased rather than decreased prejudice? When our children find their pleasant social and friendship contacts within their ethnic boundaries and get repeated exposure to other groups only in the competitive cauldron of the classroom, we might expect as much.

Are there available solutions to this problem? One possibility might be to end our attempts at school integration, but that hardly seems workable. Even if we were to ignore the inevitable legal and constitutional challenges and the disruptive societal wrangle such a retreat would provide, there are solid reasons for pursuing classroom integration. For instance, although white students’ achievement levels remain steady, it is 10 times more likely that the academic performance of minority students will significantly increase rather than significantly decline after desegregation (Stephan, 1978).

We must be cautious in our approach to school desegregation so that we do not throw out the baby with the bath water. The idea, of course, is to jettison just the water, leaving the baby shining from the bath. Right now, though, our baby is soaking in the
Schmutzwasser
of increased racial hostility. Fortunately, real hope for draining away that hostility is emerging from the research of education specialists into the concept of “cooperative learning.” Because much of the heightened prejudice from classroom desegregation seems to stem from increased exposure to outside group members as rivals, these educators have experimented with forms of learning in which cooperation rather than competition with classmates is central.

Off to Camp

To understand the logic of the cooperative approach, it helps to reexamine the fascinating, four-decade-old research program of Turkish-born social scientist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues (Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, & Sherif, 1961). Intrigued with the issue of intergroup conflict, the research team decided to investigate the process as it developed in boys’ summer camps. Although the boys never realized that they were participants in an experiment, Sherif and his associates consistently engaged in artful manipulations of the camp’s social environment to observe the effects on group relations.

What the researchers learned is that it didn’t take much to bring on certain kinds of ill will. Simply separating the boys into two residence cabins was enough to stimulate a “we versus they” feeling between the groups; letting the boys assign names to the two groups (the Eagles and the Rattlers) accelerated the sense of rivalry. The boys soon began to demean the qualities and accomplishments of the other group; however, these forms of hostility were minor compared to what occurred when the experimenters purposely introduced competitive activities into the groups’ meetings with one another. Cabin-against-cabin treasure hunts, tugs-of-war, and athletic contests produced name-calling and confrontations. During the competitions, members of the opposing team were labeled “cheaters,” “sneaks,” and “stinkers.” Afterward, cabins were raided, rival banners were stolen and burned, threatening signs were posted, and lunchroom scuffles were commonplace.

At this point, it was evident to Sherif that the recipe for disharmony was quick and easy: just separate the participants into groups and let them sit for a while in their own juices. Then mix together over the flame of continued competition. And there you have it: Cross-group hatred at a rolling boil.

A more challenging issue then faced the experimenters: how to remove the now entrenched hostility. They first tried the contact approach of bringing the bands together more often. Even when the joint activities were pleasant, such as movies and social events, the results were disastrous. Picnics produced food fights, entertainment programs gave way to shouting contests, dining-hall lines degenerated into shoving matches. Sherif and his research team began to worry that, in Dr. Frankenstein fashion, they might have created a monster they could no longer control. Then, at the height of the strife, they tried a strategy that was at once simple and effective.

They constructed a series of situations in which competition between the groups would have harmed everyone’s interest; instead, cooperation was necessary for mutual benefit. On a day-long outing, the single truck available to go into town for food was “found” to be stuck. The boys were assembled and all pulled and pushed together until the vehicle was on its way. In another instance, the researchers arranged for an interruption of the camp’s water supply, which came through pipes from a distant tank. Presented with the common crisis and realizing the need for unified action, the boys organized themselves harmoniously to find and fix the problem before day’s end. In yet another circumstance requiring cooperation, the campers were informed that a desirable movie was available for rental but that the camp could not afford it. Aware that the only solution was to combine resources, the boys pooled their money for the film and spent a very congenial evening together enjoying it.

The consequences of these cooperative ventures though not instantaneous, were nonetheless striking. Successful joint efforts toward common goals steadily bridged the rift between the two groups. Before long, the verbal baiting had died, the jostling in lines had ended, and the boys had begun to intermix at the meal tables. Further, when asked to list their best friends, significant numbers changed from an earlier exclusive naming of in-group chums to a listing that included boys in the other group. Some even thanked the researchers for the opportunity to rate their friends again because they had changed their minds since the earlier evaluation. In one revealing episode, the boys were returning from a campfire on a single bus—something that would have produced bedlam before but, at that point, was specifically requested by the boys. When the bus stopped at a refreshment stand, the boys of one group, with $5 left in their treasury, decided to treat their former bitter adversaries to milkshakes!

We can trace the roots of this surprising turnabout to those times when the boys had to view one another as allies instead of opponents. The crucial procedure was the experimenters’ imposition of common goals on the groups. It was the cooperation required to achieve these goals that finally allowed the rival group members to experience one another as reasonable fellows, valued helpers, friends, and friends of friends (Paolini et al., 2004; Wright, Aaron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997). When success resulted from the mutual efforts, it became especially difficult to maintain feelings of hostility toward those who had been teammates in the triumph.
⁴

⁴
You should not assume from these descriptions that successful cooperation works to reduce intergroup hostility only among school-age children. Subsequent research has found similar results of similar procedures in college groups (Worchel, 1979) and business organizations (Blake & Mouton, 1979). In these and most all groups, cooperation not only leads to greater liking but to greater group success (Stanne, D. W. Johnson, & R. T. Johnson, 1999).

Back to School

In the welter of racial tensions that followed school desegregation, certain educational psychologists began to see the relevance to the classroom in Sherif et al.’s findings. If only the learning experience there could be modified to include at least occasional interethnic cooperation toward mutual successes, perhaps cross-group friendships would have a place to grow. Although similar projects have been under way in various states (Johnson, 2003; Oskamp & Schultz, 1998), an especially interesting approach in this direction—termed the jigsaw classroom—was developed by Elliot Aronson and his colleagues in Texas and California (Aronson, Stephan, Sikes, Blaney, & Snapp, 1978).

The essence of the jigsaw route to learning is to require that students work together to master the material to be tested on an upcoming examination. This end is accomplished by grouping students into cooperating teams and giving each student only part of the information—one piece of the puzzle—necessary to pass the test. Under this system the students must take turns teaching and helping one another. Everyone needs everyone else to do well. Like Sherif’s campers working on tasks that could be successfully accomplished only jointly, the students become allies rather than enemies.

When tried in newly desegregated classrooms, the jigsaw approach has generated impressive results. Studies have shown that, compared to other classrooms in the same school using the traditional competitive method, jigsaw learning stimulated significantly more friendship and less prejudice among ethnic groups. Besides this vital reduction in hostility, there were other advantages: minority students’ self-esteem, liking for school, and test scores improved. The white students benefited, too. Their self-esteem and liking for school went up, and their test performance was at least as high as that of whites in traditional classes (Aronson, Bridgeman, & Geffner, 1978a, 1978b).

There is a tendency when faced with positive results like those from the jigsaw classroom to become overly enthusiastic about a single, simple solution to a difficult problem. Experience should tell us that such problems rarely yield to a simple remedy. That is no doubt true in this case as well. Even within the boundaries of cooperative learning procedures, the issues are complex (Rosenfield & Stephan, 1981; Slavin, 1983). Before we can feel truly comfortable with the jigsaw, or any similar approach to learning and liking, much more research is needed to determine how frequently, in what size doses, at which ages, and in which sorts of groups cooperative strategies will work. We also need to know the best way for teachers to institute new methods—provided they will institute them at all. After all, not only are cooperative learning techniques a radical departure from the traditional, familiar routine of most teachers, but they may also threaten a teacher’s sense of importance in the classroom by turning over much of the instruction to the students. Finally, we must realize that competition has its place, too. It can serve as a valuable motivator of desirable action and an important builder of self-concept. The task, then, is not to eliminate academic competition but to break its monopoly in the classroom by introducing regular cooperative techniques that include members of all ethnic groups and lead to successful outcomes.