Students' interactive and noninteractive behaviors in the classroom: A comparison between two types of classrooms in the city and the Kibbutz in Israel

Students' interactive and noninteractive behaviors in the classroom were observed among 65 third grade children in two types of instructional situations, active classroom (AC) and traditional classroom (TC) within a kibbutz school and a city school. The hypothesis was that kibbutz children would exhibit more cooperative behaviors due to the ideological transmission of cooperative norms in the communal kibbutz society. It also was hypothesized that the highest amount of interactive behaviors would be found in the AC, where classmates have more opportunity to interact. Results supported the hypotheses. The findings clarified the importance of ideology transmission as a source for interactive cooperative behavior, but indicated that only specific instructional practices facilitate those behaviors in the classroom.