Cooperative and Collaborative Learning as a Strategy for Educational Inclusion in Primary Education

Educational inclusion remains a central challenge for contemporary school systems. Students with specific educational support needs (SESN) consistently show lower levels of social participation, peer acceptance, and academic progress than their classmates, even in mainstream classroom settings. Despite broad international consensus on the value of inclusive education - reflected in frameworks such as the UN 2030 Agenda and UNESCO’s International Commission on the Futures of Education - evidence-based pedagogical strategies that simultaneously advance social and academic outcomes for diverse learners remain insufficiently documented, particularly within Southern European educational systems.Cooperative and collaborative learning have gained growing attention as promising tools for bridging this gap. Although distinct in their theoretical foundations - cooperative learning emphasizes structured interdependence and defined peer roles, while collaborative learning foregrounds shared inquiry and joint knowledge construction - both approaches position peer interaction as a core mechanism for learning and inclusion. Yet the conditions under which either genuinely benefits students with SESN are still poorly understood. What the literature lacks is research that links the design features of these interventions - grouping structures, task complexity, peer roles, social scripts, student preparation - to concrete, multidimensional inclusion outcomes. Most existing work treats cooperative learning as a monolithic category, without unpacking which structural elements drive social acceptance, friendship quality, self-perception, or academic engagement, and for which learners.This Research Topic aims to advance scientific knowledge on cooperative and collaborative learning as pedagogical strategies for promoting the full inclusion of students with SESN in mainstream primary education. Its central contribution is to connect specific features of intervention design with multiple dimensions of inclusion - social acceptance, peer friendships, self-perception, prosocial interactions, and learning engagement - in ways that generate actionable guidance for teachers and educational policymakers. Peer tutoring is a modality of particular interest: it is among the most extensively studied and practically relevant forms of structured peer-based learning, and we especially invite research that examines how its structural and implementation conditions shape inclusion outcomes across diverse learners.We welcome original empirical studies, systematic reviews, and theoretical contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:1. The effects of cooperative and collaborative learning modalities - including peer tutoring, reciprocal teaching, classwide peer tutoring, cooperative groups, and interactive learning communities - on the social participation and academic progress of students with SESN in primary education.2. The role of intervention design features - task structure, grouping criteria, peer roles, social scripts, and student training - in shaping the quality of peer interactions and inclusion outcomes.3. Assessment tools and multidimensional frameworks for evaluating educational inclusion in primary education.4. Teachers’ knowledge, perceptions, and professional development needs related to implementing cooperative and collaborative learning for inclusion.5. Gender and individual differences as moderating variables in cooperative learning outcomes for students with SESN.6. Family and community involvement in inclusive cooperative practices.We particularly encourage studies conducted in diverse national and cultural contexts, using quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods designs. Manuscripts may include original research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and methods papers. Topic editors: María Jesús Fernández-Sánchez, Sérgio Gaitas, María Teresa Becerra Traver Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82831/cooperative-and-collaborative-learning-as-a-strategy-for-educational-inclusion-in-primary-education