The potential of cooperative learning and peace education to promote social competences in higher education

Abstract

This article offers a proposal to teach in a foreign language subject using some cooperative activities that promote the principles of peace education and the acquisition of social competences at tertiary education. Cooperative learning has been successfully implemented in the last 60 years for teaching at different educational levels including the Higher Education studies due to its solid theoretical foundation, the principles it proposes and its practical applications. Working in small groups in order to accomplish the different cooperative activities proposed implies the promotion of communication and conflict solving as social competences. Moreover, this paper will highlight the importance of managing conflicts in a peaceful way and respecting the different opinions, which are basic principles in peace education. We propose the establishment of cooperative activities which enhance peace as an example to work on social issues in University education so that students improve their critical capacity when reflecting on issues such as poverty, war, globalization, gender, human rights or racism. Finally, a survey was conducted in order to establish students’ opinions about the cooperative activities designed and the social competences they acquired in doing them. Students’ answers show that they are aware of the importance of learning social competences for life.