ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to clarify the concept of collaboration, to describe the types of social interactions that are constituents of collaboration and examines the type of conflict resolution used in collaborative activities. Collaboration may be seen as the absence of conflict or disagreement, but this is an extremely restrictive definition. The alternative is not to dichotomise collaboration and conflict, but to examine the types of disagreements that arise in collaborative problem solving and the ways such disagreements are resolved. The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. The actions of the children immediately after they began the task were crucial in establishing their level of collaboration. The notion of collaboration has connotations of guidance and suggests that one of the pair has the capability, and could have produced the outcome alone.
