The immigrant at school. The methodology of cooperative work as a means of social and academic integration of students with an immigrant

Abstract

First of all, this article contextualises what the concept of immigrant means, and considers the school as a potentially privileged space of integration, in order to realise all the possibilities and limits of the methodology that it proposes. The thesis of the author is that cooperative work (CW) is a «third generation» method of integration. Starting from that point, the basic conditions which allow the development of CW are described. As the author sees it, the integrator character of the CW is based on the need of co-ordinating the points of view of all participants in every activity carried out at school. The CW as a methodology is framed in a context of a global action by the whole teaching staff and the individual teacher in the classroom.