The college years represent a prime opportunity for students to develop prosocial skills through friendships that cross social boundaries (i.e., in which the two friends differ on at least one aspect of sociocultural identity such as race, political affiliation, or religion). By cultivating empathy and reducing social stratification, these…

Although cooperative learning is a well-researched framework with many reports on its effective implementation in education, successful cooperative learning practice remains elusive in the classroom. The literature suggests certain elements of cooperative learning are key, but few studies have addressed their importance with respect to the…

Intercultural language learning and teaching is generally endorsed in contemporary foreign and second language classroom contexts. This article reports the use of an intercultural education activity taught in an Italian L2 elementary course at the Language Centre of the University of Bologna attended by exchange and degree-seeking students. The…

Objectives: Socially anxious adolescents often display fears of negative evaluation (FNE) and fears of positive evaluation (FPE). The Bivalent Fear of Evaluation model posits that FNE and FPE represent two poles of socio-evaluative fears, and that individuals may simultaneously display high levels of FNE and FPE (high FNE/FPE). To what degree do…

Students with autism display challenges acquiring friendships and participating in relationships with typical peers. Social interaction is further impacted in students with low-functioning autism, necessitating consideration of their unique characteristics when designing and implementing interventions. This single-subject study examined the…

Little is known about the skills children need to successfully collaborate with classmates on academic assignments. The purposes of this study were to identify grade-schoolers' collaborative skills, evaluate the importance of identified skills for collaborative work, and determine whether differences in skill use were related to children's social…

Marian Matthews' article in the October 1992 issue of "Educational Leadership" reports that many gifted students are resentful of cooperative learning structures. Cooperative learning is not just a teaching technique but involves learning to respect and appreciate others' differences. Much of Matthews' criticism actually addresses…