Maintaining Group Harmony at 'Tinderbox Moments’ — LOPI and Cherokee Community Values

• In Event: Ways of organizing learning in everyday settings: LOPI in Indigenous practices, values, and community collaboration

Abstract

Learning by Observing and Pitching In (LOPI) demonstrates children’s initiative and skill in collaboration, with shared responsibility for ongoing group endeavors. We examine how children’s skill in managing these processes support harmonious relations under potential intergroup conflict in a Cherokee reservation high school. During a schoolwide STEM activity day, two historically rival student groups converge around a game station. Our microanalysis shows multiple “tinderbox” moments when conflict could have erupted as students jockey for social position and access to the activity. Instead, these children chose to sustain community harmony; one group ‘took over’ by joining in, observing and subverting the game’s scripted rhythm using humor and strategic ignoring to prevent rupture. Without adult direction, students preserved both group status and shared activity flow, showing how LOPI-like coordination can organize conflict management in historically Indigenous-heritage communities.

Authors

• Andrew Dayton, University of Southern California

• Barbara Rogoff, University of California - Santa Cruz