Collaboration in Children’s Problem Solving

Barbara Rogoff and Colleagues

Dr. Rogoff and colleagues have led research in the area of collaboration in learning and development, otherwise known as the apprenticeship model. This apprenticeship model (discussed in Chapter 2) builds on the sociocultural theory of Vygotsky and has been demonstrated in many different cultures by Dr. Rogoff and her collaborators over the years, particularly in the Indigenous cultures of the Americas where they have observed young children in context. To begin our discussion of her tremendous contributions to understanding development from a cross-cultural approach, it is best to defer to her own voice.

Please watch the video, below, and reflect in your journal.

Video: Barbara Rogoff: Children from “Underserved Minority” Backgrounds Have Strengths for Learning (duration: 6:09)
Captions were not provided for this third-party video, but YouTube’s auto-caption feature is enabled. If you require a transcript, please inform your instructor.

(American Educational Research Association, 2016)

While Dr. Rogoff’s emphasis here is on collaboration, you can see that the examples she provides inherently involve problem solving. This kind of embedded problem solving goes beyond any isolated task that we as researchers can come up with, such as the Tower of Hanoi. We see how problem solving occurs differently in different cultures by looking at socially embedded interactions.

Fluid Collaboration vs. Dividing Decisions

One study carried out in California paired sets of siblings (each with a six-year-old and a 10-year-old) to navigate a familiar yet simulated setting: a tabletop model of a grocery store (Alcalá, Rogoff & Fraire, 2018).

Dr. Rogoff has often used such methodology, whereby elements of “control” combined with activities are embedded in some kind of meaningful social context. Clearly, siblings will have a pre-existing relationship they would then be able to mobilize (or alternately, that may provide an obstruction!) in this simulated task of navigating through a grocery store. Also, using a grocery store is familiar to anyone living in California, and it is, therefore, a common context to which children of these ages would be accustomed.

The dyads (groups of two siblings, aged six and 10) were either European American or of Mexican Indigenous heritage. Their task was to plan the shortest route possible through a tabletop model grocery store (as depicted here).

As Dr. Rogoff refers to in the above video, she observed a pattern of the Mexican Indigenous-heritage children engaging in collaboration through this problem-solving task more often than the European American dyads.

Alcalá and colleagues noted two different ways of working together:

• Divide decisions: the European-American dyads tended to divide the task between them into a hierarchical model for decision-making
• Fluid collaboration: the Mexican Indigenous dyads were likely to discuss and build on each other’s perspectives to plan their route. Moreover, Alcalá and colleagues asked parents about their children’s willingness to collaborate with initiatives on home-related tasks in the family; the Mexican Indigenous children were more likely to engage in this type of collaboration, too.

Collaboration vs. Negotiation

In a related paper, Mejía-Arauz and colleagues (Mejía-Arauz, Rogoff, Dayton and Henne-Ochoa, 2018) looked at the relationship between collaboration and negotiation. They argue that the construct of collaboration is actually in opposition to negotiation because they are built on different cultural assumptions:

• In the case of collaboration, two parties enter into a give-and-take relationship around carrying out a task or solving a problem, with the assumption that they will carve out a path together.
• Negotiation, on the other hand, is built around the assumption that separate parties are bringing separate ideas to a path to solving a problem. Therefore, they must learn each other’s position and agree upon a course of action that perhaps integrates each of their ideas.

What is fascinating about this differentiation is that the authors argue that working in collaboration leads to a sort of shared thinking, such that thinking itself is impacted by the collaboration. This is truly what we are thinking about when we imagine young children’s development in thinking and learning. Collaboration can be an opportunity to engage in the kind of social interaction that Vygotsky conceptualized: shared perspective and shared collaboration leads to shared thinking.

Other Perspectives on Children’s Collaboration

This model of collaboration in young children has been observed by others in various cultures, including Turtle Island and West Africa. Here, we consider the collaborative model as a common way in which many cultures engage and, therefore, one that has long provided many contexts for developing children’s thinking and learning.

Cooperation vs. Competition

Western European models that foster competition have been centred in Canadian schooling due to its colonial structure. It is important to remember that it is through our institutions that we can identify structures that reflect specific cultural values. So, if we talk about decolonizing or decentering Western perspectives, we must look to our sectors and our institutions. These are embedded in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and it is our responsibility as Treaty people to ensure that we make change.

One such change may include considering alternate ways for children to engage in problem solving within their families and communities and of harnessing that model of collaboration in our early learning environments. The problem-solving development that can occur for all children is one benefit of such an approach, but including non-Western perspectives in how we construct learning may speak to children well beyond those of Turtle Island, West Africa, or Central America.

Miller and Thomas (1972) wrote a paper many years ago that provided insight into the Indigenous use of cooperation among children. The researchers looked at cooperation as compared with competition in a study of Blackfoot children from Alberta compared to urban European-Canadian children. The researchers observed that in playing a cooperative game:

• Teams of European-Canadian children tended to rely heavily on competition and rewards allocated to individuals over teams
• The Blackfoot children demonstrated continued cooperation even after having one individual obtain rewards in the game

One thing that was particularly meaningful in this study is that the European-Canadian children even suffered from their competitive strategy, with the authors indicating that it hurt the outcome of the game. This is not to say that competition is something to be judged as ineffective or inappropriate in early childhood, but when we see different approaches to problem solving that are either equally effective or that result in more successful outcomes, it underscores the importance of not valuing one model over another.

Problem Solving in Context: Nigeria

This notion of people working together is certainly consistent with collectivist cultures, and we know that most cultures on Earth are indeed collectivist.

I have previously discussed collectivism in the context of East Asian and African countries, even with very different political structures and cultural differences. In my work in Nigerian early learning, I have seen a different emphasis on people working together and children engaging in collective activities.

My long-time collaborator Patricia Falope shares her thoughts in the video below on children’s thinking, problem-solving and the cultural context of Nigeria. I would like you to listen to her perspective on children’s thinking and learning and see if anything resonates with you and your experience, or perhaps with your reflections on early learning.

Video: Children’s Problem Solving: Patricia Eno Falope (duration: 5:16)