This paper proposes examining cooperative learning from an anthropological perspective and presents a theoretical framework for doing so. The paper first briefly reviews the psychological theory and research underlying cooperative learning. The paper uses data from a pilot ethnographic study of cooperative learning in a fourth-grade classroom to illustrate the power of an anthropological perspective and the theoretical framework, a framework that will be used to guide a future full-scale ethnographic study of cooperative learning. The paper argues that by conceiving of cooperative learning as a complex classroom cultural system rather than as a predictable instructional approach, room is allowed to examine participants' construction of this cultural system. (Thirty-seven references are attached.) (MG)