Teaching students to resolve their own and their schoolmates' conflicts

Johnson, David W

Joshua was chasing Octavia. He pushed her down and she kicked him.

Jane was going to beat up loan after school. They were spitting in each other's face and calling each other names.

Tom shoved Cameron up against the lockers and threatened him. Cameron said he's going to bring a knife to school tomorrow to get even.

Schools are filled with conflicts. Considerable instructional, administrative, and learning efforts are lost because students and faculty often manage their conflicts poorly. The frequency and severity of conflicts seems to be increasing, and for the first time, the category "fighting, violence, and gangs" is tied with "lack of discipline" for the numberone problem confronting local public schools (Elam, Rose, & Gallup, 1994).

Conflicts will not go away. Students are clearly fascinated by and drawn to conflicts. They liked to start them, watch them, hear about them, and discuss them. To make schools orderly and peaceful places in which high-quality education can take place, conflicts must be managed constructively without physical or verbal violence. To do so, students must be taught to be peacemakers.

HOW CONFLICTS CAN BE OF VALUE

A number of points can help clarify the value of conflicts. First, conflicts are inevitable. You might as well try to stop the earth from turning on its axis as to try to eliminate conflicts from your life. No matter what you do, conflicts arise.

Second, conflicts are desirable if they are managed constructively. Conflicts arise whenever people have goals they care about and are involved in relationships they value. The absence of conflict often signals a dysfunctional situation wherein neither the goals nor the relationship is valued.

Conflict often signals a commitment to the goals and the relationship. This commitment fuels an engagement in conflict that can lead to either constructive or destructive outcomes. On the destructive side, conflicts can (a) create anger, hostility, lasting animosity, and even violence, (b) result in pain and sadness, and (c) end in divorce, lawsuits, and war. There is nothing pretty about a conflict gone wrong. On the positive side, conflicts are constructive when (a) all disputants are satisfied with the outcome (the agreement maximizes joint benefits and allows all participants to achieve their goals and, therefore, everyone goes away satisfied and pleased), (b) their relationship is strengthened and improved (disputants are better able to work together and have more respect, trust, and liking for each other), and (c) disputants are able to resolve future conflicts constructively.

Besides these direct outcomes, conflicts have value in a number of other ways. Conflicts:

1. Focus attention on problems that have to be solved. Conflicts energize and motivate you to solve your problems.

2. Clarify who you are and what your values are. Through conflicts, you develop your identity.

3. Clarify how you need to change. Conflicts clarify and highlight patterns of behavior that are dysfunctional.

4. Help you understand who the other person is and his or her values. Conflicts clarify the identity of your friends and acquaintances.

5. Strengthen relationships by increasing your confidence that the two of you can resolve your disagreements. Every time a serious conflict is resolved constructively, the relationship becomes less fragile and more able to withstand crises and problems.

6. Keep the relationship clear of irritations and resentments so positive feelings can be experienced fully. A good conflict may do a lot to resolve the small tensions of interacting with others.

7. Release emotions (such as anger, anxiety, insecurity, and sadness) that, if kept inside, makes us mentally sick. A conflict a day keeps depression away!

8. Clarify what you care about, are committed to, and value. You fight over only the wants and goals you value. And you fight much more frequently and intensely with people you value and care about. The more committed you are to your goals, and the more committed you are to the other person, the more frequent and intense are the conflicts.

9. Add fun, enjoyment, excitement, and variety to your life. Being in a conflict reduces boredom, gives you new goals, motivates you to take action, and stimulates interest. Life would be incredibly boring in the absence of conflict.

Third, what determines whether a conflict is constructive or destructive are the procedures you use to manage the conflict. To manage conflicts with skill, finesse, and grace, you need:

1. To understand the procedures for managing conflicts constructively. Further, everyone involved must understand and use the same procedures. Different individuals often have quite different ideas about how to manage conflicts. Some rely on physical dominance through threats and violence. Others use verbal attack, the cold shoulder, giving in, or getting even. When two individuals involved in a conflict are using different procedures, chaos results. If conflicts are to be managed constructively, everyone has to use the same procedures to resolve them. Because the procedures for resolving conflicts constructively are not learned in most families or from television, movies, or novels, students must learn them at school.

2. The opportunity to practice, practice, practice the procedures to gain expertise in their use. Resolving conflicts takes great skill and considerable practice. Schools should emphasize overlearning of the conflict resolution-procedures by having students practice the procedures again and again.

3. Norms and values to encourage and support use of the procedures. Just because people know how to manage conflicts constructively does not mean they will do so. As long as school norms emphasize working alone and valuing "winners," students will "go for the win" when involved in a conflict rather than trying to solve the problem.

Based on these points (conflicts are inevitable, a sign of commitment, and potentially constructive), schools are advised to welcome and face conflicts and increase their frequency rather than to avoid and repress conflicts. To do so, students need to learn how to be peacemakers.

TEACHING STUDENTS TO BE PEACEMAKERS PROGRAM

We began the Teaching Students to be Peacemakers Program in the 1960s. It originated from:

1. Our research on integrative negotiations (Johnson, 1967), perspective-taking in conflict situations (Johnson, 1967, 1971 a), conflict resolution in the school (Johnson, 1970, 1971 b; Johnson, Johnson, & Johnson, 1976), communication in conflict situations (Johnson, 1974), and constructive conflict (Johnson, 1970; D. Johnson & R. Johnson, 1979).

2. Our development of social interdependence theory (Deutsch, 1949; Lewin, 1951; Johnson, 1970; Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Watson & Johnson, 1972).

3. Our training of elementary, junior-high, high-school, and college students and adults in how to manage conflicts constructively (Johnson, 1970, 1991, 2000, D. Johnson & F. Johnson, 2000). Besides students, teachers, and administrators, we taught delinquents, runaways, drug-abusers, and married couples in therapy how to manage their conflicts more constructively.

The Teaching Students to be Peacemakers Program is a 12-year spiral program in which students learn increasingly sophisticated negotiation and mediation procedures (Johnson & Johnson, 1995a, 1995b). It focuses on teaching all students in a school to be peacemakers. We have implemented the Peacemaker program in schools throughout North America and in a number of countries in Central and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

The Teaching Students To Be Peacemakers Program has six steps:

1. Create a cooperative context. The constructive resolution of conflict requires the disputants to recognize their long-term interdependence and the need to maintain effective working relationships with each other-conditions that exist only in a cooperative context. In contrast, when individuals are in competition, they strive for a "win" rather than attempt to solve the problem.

2. Teach students to recognize when a conflict is and is not occurring. Many students see conflicts as always involving anger, hostility, and violence and do not recognize conflicts as such when they lead to laughter, insight, learning, and problem solving.

3. Teach students a concrete and specific procedure for negotiating agreements. Everyone involved can thus achieve his or her goals while maintaining or even improving the quality of the relationship. Telling students to "be nice" or "talk it out," or "solve your problem" is not enough.

4. Teach students a concrete and specific mediation procedure. Give them enough practice in using this procedure to develop some expertise. If students are to mediate their schoolmates' conflicts, they must know how to do so. This initial training on the nature of conflict and how to negotiate and mediate usually consists of approximately 30 half-hour lessons.

5. Implement the peer mediation program. Working in pairs at first, mediators are made available to help schoolmates negotiate more effectively. The mediator's role is rotated through the school in a way that affords each student an equal amount of time in being a mediator.

6. Continue the training in negotiation and mediation procedures weekly throughout first through twelfth grades. This amount of time is necessary to refine and upgrade students' skills. To become competent in resolving conflicts takes years and years. A few hours of training is not enough to ensure that students manage their conflicts constructively.

Each of these steps is discussed in more detail in the following pages.

Creating a Cooperative Context

The context within which conflicts develop largely determines whether the conflict is managed constructively or destructively (Deutsch, 1973; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1995a). The two possible contexts for conflict are cooperative and competitive. (In individualistic situations individuals do not interact and, therefore, conflict tends to be absent.)

For competition to exist, there must be scarcity. One person must defeat others to get what he or she wants. Conflicts usually do not go well in a competitive context. Within competitive situations individuals typically have a short-term time orientation in which all energies are focused on winning. Little or no attention is directed to maintaining a good relationship. Within competitive situations (Deutsch, 1973; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1995a):

1. Communication tends to be avoided, and when it does take place, it tends to contain misleading information and threats.

2. Frequent and common misperceptions and distortions of the other person's position and motivations are difficult to correct.

3. Individuals hold a suspicious, hostile attitude toward each other that increases their readiness to exploit each other's wants and needs and refuse each other's requests.

4. Individuals tend to deny the legitimacy of others' wants, needs, and feelings and consider only their own interests.

Cooperation requires mutual goals that all parties are committed to achieve. One person is not successful unless everyone involved is successful. Conflicts usually go well in a cooperative context. Within cooperative situations individuals typically have a long-term time orientation in which they focus their energies both on achieving goals and on building good working relationships with others. Within cooperative situations (Deutsch, 1973; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1995a):

1. The communication of relevant information tends to be open and honest, frequent, complete, and accurate. rate.

2. Perceptions of the other person and the other person's actions tend to be accurate and constructive.

3. Individuals tend to trust and like each other and, therefore, are willing to respond helpfully to each other's wants, needs, and requests.

4. Individuals recognize the legitimacy of each other's interests and search for a solution that accommodates the needs of both sides.

The overall conclusion is that conflicts cannot be managed constructively within a competitive context. When competitive and individualistic learning dominates a school, conflicts will inevitably be destructive. In order to resolve conflicts constructively, a cooperative context needs to exist. The easiest way to create such a climate is through primarily using cooperative learning in instructional situations (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1998). Since cooperative learning tends to increase achievement, promote more positive relationships, and improve students' psychological health, its use should be welcomed by most teachers (Johnson & Johnson, 1989).

Once a cooperative context has been established, students may be taught directly to recognize conflicts when they arise and the procedures and skills required to manage conflicts constructively.

Teaching Students What Is and Is Not a Conflict

The diverse conflict-resolution programs in today's schools tend to be either cadre or total student body programs. In the cadre approach a few students are trained to serve as peer mediators for the entire school. In the total student body approach every student learns how to manage conflicts constructively by negotiating agreements and mediating their schoolmates' conflicts. Obviously, the greater the number of students trained in how to negotiate and mediate, the greater is the number of conflicts that can be managed constructively in the school.

Whether training a cadre or an entire student body, teaching students what is and is not a conflict is the first step in conflict management training. Students need to know what a conflict is and the difference between constructive and destructive conflicts. Students generally have a negativity bias in which they tend to view conflicts as involving anger and violence and, therefore, tend to overestimate the frequency of angry, violent conflicts and underestimate the incidents of actual conflicts. The most common types of conflicts in schools are verbal harassments (name-calling, insults), verbal arguments, rumors and gossip, physical fights, and dating/relationship issues. Although physical and verbal aggression might be more frequent in urban than suburban schools, it rarely involves serious altercations or violations of law.

One misperception resulting from the negativity bias is that students should avoid conflicts. Actually, as long as conflicts are managed constructively, they should be sought out and enjoyed. Often, life has too few conflicts, not too many. The first component in the Teaching Students to be Peacemakers program, therefore, is to teach students (a) what is and is not a conflict, (b) the difference between destructive and constructive conflicts, and (c) the desirability of constructive conflicts. Typically, students need to increase the number of conflicts in their life as long as they manage the conflicts constructively.

Teaching Students to Negotiate

The best way I know how to defeat an enemy is to make him a friend. -Abraham Lincoln

The heart of conflict-resolution training is teaching students how to negotiate constructive resolutions to their conflicts. All students in all schools need to learn how to negotiate (and mediate). Negotiation is a process by which people try to work out a settlement when they (a) have both shared and opposing interests and (b) want to come to an agreement (D. Johnson & F Johnson, 2000).

The two types of negotiations are distributive or "winlose" (in which one person benefits only if the opponent agrees to make a concession) and integrative, or problem solving (in which the disputants work together to create an agreement that benefits everyone involved). Only in very limited conflicts involving ad hoc, one-time relationships are win-lose negotiations appropriate. In ongoing relationships that have a future as well as a present, an integrative approach to negotiations is the only constructive alternative. The steps in using problem solving negotiations are (Johnson & Johnson, 1995a, 1995b):

1. Describing what you want: "I want to use the book now." This means using good communication skills and defining the conflict as a small and specific mutual problem.

2. Describing how you feel: "I'm frustrated." Disputants must understand how they feel and communicate it openly and clearly.

3. Describing the reasons for your wants and feelings: "You've been using. the book for the past hour. If I don't get to use the book soon my report won't be done on time. It's frustrating to have to wait so long." This means expressing cooperative intentions, listening carefully, separating interests from positions, and differentiating before trying to integrate the two sets of interests.

4. Taking the other's perspective and summarizing your understanding of what the other person wants, how the other person feels, and the reasons underlying both: "My understanding of you is. . . ." This requires understanding the perspective of the opposing disputant and being able to see the problem from both perspectives simultaneously.

5. Inventing three optional plans to resolve the conflict that maximize joint benefits: "Plan A is .... Plan B is .... Plan C is .... This includes inventing creative options to solve the problem.

6. Choosing one and formalizing the agreement with a handshake: "Let's agree on Plan B!" A wise agreement is fair to all disputants and is based on principles. It maximizes joint benefits and strengthens disputants' ability to work together cooperatively and resolve conflicts constructively in the future. It specifies how each disputant should act in the future and how the agreement will be reviewed and renegotiated if it does not work.

Students need to practice this procedure again and again until it becomes an automatic habit. If students have to stop and think what they should do, it might be too late to manage the conflicts constructively. Overlearning the integrative negotiation procedure is needed so it is available for use in conflicts with intense emotions such as fear and anger. Students need to overlearn the negotiation procedure and become skillful in its use in relatively easy situations before they can be expected to use it to resolve emotionally charged conflicts. Mediation, furthermore, is easier and more effective when all students are skilled in integrative negotiating procedures.

Teaching Students to Mediate Schoolmates' Conflicts

A soft answer turneth away wrath.-Bible

When students cannot successfully negotiate a constructive resolution to their conflicts, peer mediators should be available. In the Teaching Students to be Peacemakers program, all students are taught the procedures and skills they need to mediate their classmates' conflicts of interests (Johnson & Johnson, 1995a). A mediator is a neutral person who helps two or more people resolve their conflict, usually by negotiating an integrative agreement. The mediator has no formal power over either disputant. A mediator does not tell disputants what to do or decide who is right and who is wrong. When you mediate, you stand in the middle and help disputants to go through each step of problem-solving negotiations so they reach an agreement that is fair, just, and workable.

Mediation usually is-contrasted with arbitration. Arbitration is the submission of a dispute to a disinterested third party (such as a teacher or a principal) who makes a final and binding judgment as to how the conflict will be resolved. Mediation consists of four steps (Johnson & Johnson, 1995a):

1. End hostilities. The mediator ensures that disputants end hostilities and disputants cool off. Usually disputants ask the mediator for help. In some cases the mediator may see a dispute taking place and ask if he or she can be of service. In rare instances, the mediator may have to get a teacher organ administrator to break up a fight. The mediator must make sure that all disputants are emotionally capable of solving problems and resolving conflicts. If disputants are too angry to problem-solve, they must cool down before mediation begins.

2. Ensure that disputants are committed to the mediation process. The mediator introduces the process of mediation and sets the ground rules, to ensure that disputants are ready to negotiate in good faith. The mediator first introduces himself or herself. The mediator then asks the students if they want to solve the problem and does not proceed until both answer "yes." Then the mediator explains:

* "Mediation is voluntary. My role is to help you find a solution to your conflict that is acceptable to both of you."

* "I'm neutral. I won't take sides or attempt to decide who is right or wrong. I'll help you decide how to solve the conflict."

* "Each person will have the chance to state his or her view of the conflict without interruption."

* "The rules you must agree to are: (a) Agree to solve the problem, (b) no name-calling, (c) do not interrupt, (d) be as honest as you can, (e) if you agree to a solution, you must abide by it (you must do what you have agreed to do), and (f) anything said in mediation is confidential (you, the mediator, will not tell anyone what is said)."

3. Help disputants successfully negotiate with each other The mediator carefully takes the disputants through the negotiation procedure by helping disputants:

* Define the conflict by having the disputants jointly define the conflict, asking each disputant: "What happened? What do you want? How do you feel?" The mediator paraphrases what each disputant says when necessary to demonstrate that the mediator is listening to and understanding what the disputants are saying and when the mediator believes a disputant does not clearly understand what the other person is saying. The mediator also enlarges the shadow of the future by highlighting the ways by which they will have to work cooperatively with each other in the future.

* Exchange reasons for their positions by helping the disputants present their reasons and the rationale for their positions and understand the differences between their positions. The mediator keeps the disputants focused on the issue, not on peripheral issues such as their anger toward each other, equalizes power between the disputants, recognizes disputants' constructive behaviors during negotiations, and reframes the issue by helping the disputants change their perspectives.

* Reverse the perspectives so each disputant is able to present the other's position and feelings to the other's satisfaction. The mediator also could roleplay the conflict and switch roles at critical points.

* Come up with at least three options that maximize joint outcomes and leave the disputants feeling that they have benefited. The mediator encourages creative thinking.

4. Formalize the agreement. Reach a wise agreement and shake hands to formalize it. The mediator helps the disputants weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative and select the one they wish to implement. The disputants sign a contract to formalize their commitment to implement the agreement and abide by its conditions. The mediator becomes the keeper of the contract and checks back with the disputants a day or so later to see if the agreement is working.

Table 1 summarizes the steps in mediation and offers possible mediator statements.

If mediation by peers fails, the counselor mediates the conflict. If counselor mediation fails, the counselor arbitrates by deciding who is right and who is wrong. If that fails, the school principal mediates the conflict. If that fails, the principal arbitrates. Teaching all students negotiation and mediation procedures and skills and implementing a peer mediation program results in a schoolwide discipline program that empowers students to regulate and control their own and their classmates' actions. Teachers and administrators are then freed to spend more of their energies on instruction.

Implementing the Peacemaker Program

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships-the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world, at peace.-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Once students understand how to negotiate and mediate, the Peacemaker program is implemented. Each day two class members are selected to serve as official mediators. Any conflicts that students cannot resolve themselves are referred to the mediators. The mediators wear official T-shirts, patrol the playground and lunchroom, and are available to mediate any conflicts that arise in the classroom or school.

The role of mediator is rotated so all students have an opportunity to serve as mediators for an equal amount of time. Initially, students mediate in pairs, to ensure that shy and nonverbal students get the same amount of experience as the more extroverted and verbally fluent students. Mediating classmates' conflicts is perhaps the most effective way of teaching students the need for skillful use of each step in the negotiation procedure.

The processes of negotiation and mediation allow students to practice joint decision making within a structure that emphasizes a solution/settlement acceptable to all parties involved and, therefore, is fair. Students are given the power to decide the outcome (within the constraints of school policy and the law) and solve a joint problem. For a settlement to be reached, they must take responsibility for their conflict. Negotiation and mediation are self-empowering. They enable students to make decisions about issues and conflicts that affect their own lives rather than have a decision imposed on them by school staff.

'Continuing Lessons to Refine and Upgrade Students' Skills

Booster sessions are needed throughout the year to maintain the use of the negotiation and mediation procedures. Gaining real expertise in resolving conflicts constructively takes years of training and practice. It may even take a whole lifetime. A few hours of training clearly is not sufficient to teach students how to negotiate or mediate skillfully. The initial Peacemaker training is not enough to create highly skilled negotiators and mediators. At least twice a week or so, students should receive further training or practice in negotiating and mediating. The Teaching Students to be Peacemakers program is intended to be a 12-year spiral program that is retaught each year at increasingly more sophisticated and complex levels.

One of the most natural ways to integrate negotiation and mediation training into the fabric of school life is to integrate it into academic lessons. Literature, history, and science involve conflict. Almost any lesson in these subject areas can be modified to include role-playing situations using the negotiation or mediation procedures. In our research, for example, we have focused on integrating the Peacemaker training into English literature units involving a novel. Each of the major conflicts in the novel was used to teach the negotiation or mediation procedure and all students participated in role playing how to use the procedure to resolve the conflicts in the novel constructively. With some training, teachers can readily integrate the Peacemaker program into academic units.

RESEARCH ON PEACEMAKER PROGRAM

We have conducted 18 studies on the effectiveness of the Teaching Students to be Peacemakers program (Johnson & Johnson, 1995d, 2000), in nine different schools in two different countries. The students involved were from elementary, middle, and high schools, from lower to upper middle class, and from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Mediators were drawn from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. Two approaches to peer mediation were studied: total student body and school cadre. The studies were conducted in rural, suburban, and urban settings. The training programs were 9 to 15 hours in length.

The programs were evaluated over a period of several months to a year. Eleven of the studies involved control groups. In seven of the studies, classrooms and/or controls were selected randomly from the school; in four studies students were assigned randomly to conditions. In nine of the studies teachers were rotated across conditions. The studies were carefully controlled field-experimental studies with high internal and external validity. We completed a metaanalysis on these studies (Johnson & Johnson, 2000) that addressed the following series of questions:

1. How often do conflicts among students occur, and what are the most commonly occurring conflicts? The findings indicate that students engage in conflicts daily. In the suburban schools studied, most of the conflicts reported centered on the possession and access to resources, preferences about what to do, playground issues, and turn-taking. Some conflicts involved physical and verbal aggression. In the urban elementary school studied, the vast majority of conflicts that were referred to mediation involved physical and verbal violence.

More different types of conflicts were reported at school than at home. The conflicts at home tended to relate to preferences, possessions, and access. Few conflicts were reported concerning beliefs and relationships or involved physical fights and verbal insults. Few conflicts arose over academic work in either setting. Value conflicts were almost never reported.

2. Before training, what strategies did students use to manage their conflicts? Before training, students generally managed their conflicts by (a) forcing the other to concede (either by overpowering the other disputant or by asking the teacher to force the other to give in), or (b) withdrawing from the conflict and the other person.

One of the teachers, in her log, stated, "Before training, students viewed conflict as fights that always resulted in a winner and a loser. To avoid such an unpleasant situation, they usually placed the responsibility for resolving conflicts on me, the teacher." Students seemed to lack all knowledge of how to engage in problem-solving, integrative negotiations.

3. Was the Peacemaker training successful in teaching students the negotiation and mediation procedures? After the training, the students were given a test requiring them to write from memory the steps of negotiation and the procedures for mediation. Across our studies, more than 90 percent of the students accurately recalled 100 percent of the negotiation steps and the mediation procedure. Up to a year after the training had ended, more than 75 percent of students on average were still able to write out all the negotiation and mediation steps. These results indicate that the training was quite effective in teaching students the negotiation and mediation procedures. The average effect size for the studies was 2.25 for the immediate post-test and 3.34 for the retention measures.

4. Could the students. apply the negotiation and mediation procedures to conflicts? Both paper-and-pencil and observation measures were used to determine whether students could apply the procedures in actual conflicts. Immediately after training, the students applied the procedures almost perfectly (effect size = 2.16) and still were quite good months after the training ended (effect size = 0.46).

5. Do students transfer the negotiation and mediation procedures to nonclassroom and nonschool situations? Our studies demonstrated that the students did use the negotiation and mediation procedures in the hallways, lunchroom, and playground. In addition, the students used the procedures in family settings.

6. What strategies did the students used to resolve conflicts after training? Five measures were used to measure the strategies the students used in managing their conflicts. The responses were categorized according to a conflict constructiveness scale and the Two-Concerns Conflict Strategies Theory (D. Johnson & F. Johnson, 2000). For the Strategy Constructiveness Scale, the average effect size was 1.60 on the post-test and 1.10 for the retention tests. For the Two-Concerns Scale, the post-test effect-size was 1.10 and the retention effect size was 0.45.

Trained students tended to use the integrative negotiation and mediation procedures in resolving the conflicts. Males and females showed no significant differences in the strategies they used to manage conflicts. Although the training took place in school and focused on school conflicts, the students used the strategies they had learned in school just as frequently in their home as they did in the school.

7. When given the option, would students engage in "win-lose" or problem-solving negotiations? Following the Peacemaker training, the students were placed in a negotiation situation in which they either could try to win or to maximize joint outcomes. Untrained students almost always strive to win. Most trained students, on the other hand, focused on maximizing joint outcomes.

8. Does the Peacemaker training increase students' academic achievement? The Peacemaker training has been integrated into both English literature and history academic units to determine its impact on academic achievement. The basic design for these studies was to assign students randomly to classes in which the Peacemaker training was integrated into the academic unit studied, or to classes in which the academic unit was studied without any conflict training. The students who received the Peacemaker training as part of the academic unit tended to score significantly higher on achievement and retention tests than did students who studied the academic unit only. The students who received Peacemaker training not only learned the factual information contained in the academic unit better, but they also were better able to interpret the information in insightful ways. The average post-test effect size was 0.88, and the average retention effect size was 0.70.

9. Does the Peacemaker training result in fewer discipline problems that have to be managed by the school staff? In our studies the number of discipline problems the teacher had to deal with decreased by about 60 percent and referrals to the school principal dropped about 95 percent.

10. Does the Peacemaker training result in more positive attitudes toward conflict? One of the goals of conflict resolution and peer mediation training is to create positive attitudes toward conflict. Before training, the students overwhelmingly held negative attitudes toward conflict and saw almost no potential positive outcomes. After training, the attitudes of the trained students became markedly more positive (effect size = 1.07) and less negative (effect size = -0.61) while the attitudes of untrained students stayed essentially the same (highly negative). Teachers and administrators and parents perceived the Peacemaker program to be constructive and helpful. Many parents whose children were not part of the project requested that their children receive the training next year, and a number of parents requested that they receive the training so they could use the procedure to improve conflict management within the family.

11. Can the Peacemaker training be initiated with very young children such as kindergartners? Kindergarten students became quite skilled negotiators and mediators, indicating that successful conflict training can take place even with very young children.

Overall, these findings provide considerable empirical validation of the effectiveness of the Peacemaker program and of conflict resolution and peer mediation training in general.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE PROGRAM

Most discipline programs are clustered at the end of the continuum in which adults administer external rewards and punishment. Thus the faculty has to monitor student behavior, determine whether it is or is not within the bounds of acceptability, and force students to terminate inappropriate actions. When the infractions are minor, the staff often arbitrates ("The pencil belongs to Mary; Jane, be quiet and sit down.") or cajoles the students to end their hostilities ("Let's forgive and forget"; "Shake hands and be friends.").

If that does not work, the students may be sent to the principal's office for a stern but cursory lecture about the value of getting along, a threat that if the conflict continues more drastic action will ensue, and a final admonition to "Go and fight no more." If that does not work, time-out rooms may be used. Eventually, some students are suspended or expelled from school.

These programs teach students that adults or authority figures are needed to resolve conflicts. The programs cost a great deal in instructional and administrative time and work only as long as the students are under surveillance. The students are not empowered. Adults may become more skillful in how to control students, but students do not learn the procedures, skills, and attitudes required to resolve conflicts constructively in their personal lives at home, in school, at work, and in the community.

At the other end of the continuum are programs aimed at teaching students self-responsibility and self-regulation. Self-regulation is the ability to act in socially approved ways in the absence of external monitors. It is the ability to initiate and cease activities according to situational demands. Self-regulation is a central and significant hallmark of cognitive and social development. To regulate their behavior, students must monitor their own behavior, assess situations using other people's perspectives to make judgments as to which behaviors are appropriate, and master the procedures and skills required to engage in the desired behavior. In interacting with other people, students have to monitor, modify, refine, and change how they behave so they can act appropriately and competently.

If students are to learn how to regulate their behavior, they must have opportunities to (a) make decisions regarding how to behave, and (b) follow through on the decisions they make. Allowing students to be joint architects in matters affecting them promotes feelings of control and autonomy. Then teachers and administrators can concentrate on instruction rather than control.

STRUCTURING ACADEMIC CONTROVERSIES

In addition to implementing the Teaching Students to be Peacemakers program, the faculty might use intellectual, academic conflicts as an inherent part of the instructional program to increase student achievement, higher-level reasoning, motivation to learn, and conflict skills (Johnson & Johnson, 1995c). Academic controversy exists when one student's ideas, information, conclusions, theories, and opinions are incompatible with those of another student and the two seek to reach an agreement.

Over the past 25 years, we (with colleagues such as Dean Tjosvold and Karl Smith) have developed a theory of controversy, tested it by conducting more than 20 experimental and field-experimental studies, developed a series of curriculum units on energy and environmental issues structured for academic controversies, and trained teachers to use academic controversies in schools and colleges throughout the United States, Canada, and a number of other countries (Johnson & Johnson, 1979, 1989, 1995c).

Structuring academic controversy into learning situations results in students learning that conflicts are potentially constructive and even enjoyable. The procedure for structuring academic controversies is to have students follow these steps:

1. Prepare scholarly positions on an academic issue.

2. Advocate these positions.

3. Refute the opposing positions while rebutting criticisms of their position.

4. View the issue from both perspectives.

5 Come to a consensus about their "best reasoned judgment" based on a synthesis of the two positions.

Participating in academic controversies teaches students how to (a) prepare, present, and defend a position, (b) take an opposing perspective, (c) make creative, high-quality decisions that integrate the best information and reasoning from both sides, and (d) engage in a set of social skills such as "criticizing ideas without criticizing people." Similar to cooperative learning, schools may welcome the use of academic controversy because it results in improved student achievement, critical thinking, higher-level reasoning, intrinsic motivation to learn, and a number of other important educational outcomes (Johnson & Johnson, 1979, 1989, 1995c).

Engaging in academic controversies demonstrates the value of conflict and promotes positive attitudes toward engaging in conflict. The skills learned in controversy support and reinforce the skills used in negotiation and mediation. A detailed program to train school personnel in how to structure academic controversies to ensure that all students are intellectually challenged within the classroom is presented in Creative Controversy: Intellectual Challenge in the Classroom (Johnson & Johnson, 1995c).

CIVIC VALUES

Training students to manage conflicts constructively is one part of a larger program known as the Three Cs (Johnson & Johnson, 2002). The three Cs refer to cooperative community, constructive conflict, and civic values. These three elements form a gestalt as cooperation promotes constructive conflict and vice versa, and both cooperative and constructive conflict promote civic values and vice versa. The value system underlying constructive conflict is a hidden curriculum beneath the surface of school life (D. Johnson & R. Johnson, 1996, 1999).

Constructive conflict resolution promotes the values of commitment to others' as well as one's own well being, success being dependent on joint efforts, subjecting one's conclusions to intellectual challenge, viewing issues from all perspectives, reaching agreements that are satisfying to all disputants, and maintaining effective and caring long-term relationships. Constructive conflict resolution, then, inherently teaches a set of civic values aimed at ensuring the fruitful continuation of the community.

CREATING A CONFLICT-POSITIVE SCHOOL

Schools do not become orderly and peaceful places in which high-quality education can take place by suppressing the occurrence of conflicts among students. For a variety of reasons, many students want to engage in conflicts. In interviewing inner-city, seventh-grade, lower-class, minority students in New York City, Opotow (1991) found that the students perceived fights as being more constructive than destructive. The students viewed fights as necessary and desirable to maintain valued social norms, deter harmful behavior, provide protection from victimization, offer gains in status, increase self-awareness, clarify personal identity, clarify others' identities, clarify dominance hierarchies, initiate friendships, and provide enjoyable and entertaining experiences. The students reported that in conflicts they found opportunities for:

* modifying the status quo and the behavior of troublesome peers

* increasing self-protection, social advancement, personal worth, interpersonal insight, conflict resolution, and excitement

* providing heroic drama that generated an oral history of danger, heroism, and good versus evil

* providing moral discourse and clarification of values and codes of behavior.

Opotow concluded that these inner-city seventh-graders were clearly fascinated by and drawn to conflicts. They liked to start conflicts, watch them, hear about them, and discuss them. Telling students not to fight is obviously not an effective strategy to pursue.

Schools are much better advised to seek an orderly and safe learning environment by encouraging conflicts and managing them constructively. A conflict-positive school is one in which conflicts are encouraged and managed constructively to maximize their potential in enhancing the quality of teaching, learning, and school life in general (Johnson & Johnson, 1995a). Conflicts are not the problem. They are part of the solution and should be a pervasive part of school life. Conflicts are inevitable, and when they are managed constructively, they are healthy and valuable and revitalize and rejuvenate the school. Conflicts can be constructive and valuable. To summarize:

* Conflicts can increase achievement and long-term retention of academic material.

* Conflicts are the key to using higher-level cognitive and moral reasoning and healthy cognitive, social, and psychological development.

* Conflicts focus attention on problems that have to be solved and energize us to solve them.

* Conflicts clarify who you are, what your values are, what you care about and are committed to, and how you may need to change.

* Conflicts help you understand who the other person is and what his or her values are.

* Conflicts strengthen relationships by increasing your confidence that the two of you can resolve your disagreements and by keeping the relationship clear of irritations and resentments so you can experience positive feelings fully.

* Conflicts can release anger, anxiety, insecurity, and sadness that, if kept inside, makes us mentally sick.

* Conflicts can be fun.

What determines whether conflicts result in these positive outcomes is how skillfully students (and faculty) use the integrative negotiation and mediation procedures.

A LIFELONG ADVANTAGE

A number of research studies have found that executives in high-level positions spend much of their time dealing with conflicts, and the more skillful they are at doing so, the more successful are their careers. Because conflicts occur continually, and because so many people are so unskilled in managing conflicts, teaching students how to resolve conflicts constructively is one of the best investments schools can make.

Once learned, conflict skills go with students to every situation and every relationship. Students do not have to manage every conflict constructively, but they should know the procedure that can lead to that outcome. Knowing how to resolve conflicts with skill and grace will give students a developmental advantage and increase their future academic and career success, improve the quality of their relationships with friends, colleagues, and family, and enhance their life-- long happiness.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The frequency of conflicts is not the problem facing schools. In many cases, schools try too hard to avoid conflicts. Instead, they should create an atmosphere in which the frequency of conflicts among students and between students and faculty increases. Conflict has many positive outcomes that cannot happen unless conflict is encouraged. The challenge facing schools is to ensure that conflicts will be managed in constructive and healthy ways. The major barrier is students' lack of effective conflict-resolution skills. Students do use procedures in managing conflicts, but often these procedures are not constructive and are not shared among all classmates. The various procedures for managing conflicts within schools lead to chaos in how conflicts are managed. This is especially true when students are from different cultural, ethnic, social class, and language backgrounds. Life in schools gets easier when all students (and staff members) use the same set of negotiation and mediation procedures in managing conflicts.

When students are taught how to negotiate and receive opportunities to mediate their classmates' conflicts, they have the tools to:

* regulate their behavior through self-monitoring

* judge what is appropriate given the situation and the other person's perspective

* modify how they behave accordingly.

Students then have the opportunity to resolve their dispute themselves, in mutually satisfactory ways, without having to engage the attention of a staff member. This empowers the students and reduces the demands on faculty members, who can devote less time to establishing and maintaining control over students and more time on instruction.

Teaching all students negotiation and mediation procedures and skills and implementing a peer mediation program results in a schoolwide discipline program focused on empowering students to regulate and control their own and their classmates' actions. When a conflict arises, the students involved first try to negotiate a resolution. If that fails, a classmate mediates their conflict. If that fails, a faculty member attempts to mediate the conflict. If that fails, the faculty member arbitrates by deciding who is right and who is wrong. If that fails, the school principal mediates the conflict. If that fails, the principal arbitrates.

Every student needs to learn how to manage conflicts constructively. Without training, many students never learn how to do so. Teaching every student how to negotiate and mediate will ensure that future generations are prepared to manage conflicts constructively in career, family, community, national, and international settings. The process is neither easy nor quick. Reducing smoking in America took more than 30 years. Reducing drunk driving took more than 20 years. Even more time may be necessary to ensure that children and adolescents can manage conflicts constructively. The more years that students spend learning and practicing the negotiation and mediation procedures, the more likely they will be to use the procedures Skillfully both in the school and beyond the school door.

REFERENCES

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Johnson, D. W. (1970). Social psychology of education. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

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Johnson, D. W. (1983). Resolving marital conflicts constructively. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. W. (1991). Human relations and your career (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Johnson, D. W. (2000). Reaching out. Interpersonal effectiveness and selfactualization (7th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Johnson D. W., & Johnson, E (2000). Joining together: Group theory and group skills (7th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1979). Conflict in the classroom: Controversy and learning. Review of Educational Research, 49, 51-61.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1995a). Teaching students to be peacemakers. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1995b). My mediation notebook (3d ed.). Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1995c). Creative controversy: Intellectual challenge in the classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1995d). Teaching students to be peacemakers: Results of five years of research. Peace and Conflict. Journal of Peace Psychology, 1(4), 417-438.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1996). Cooperative learning and traditional American values. NASSP Bulletin, 80(579), 11-18.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1999a). Cooperative learning, values, and culturally plural classrooms. In Leicester, M., Modgill, C., & Modgil, S. (Eds.), Values, the Classroom, and Cultural Diversity. London: Cassell PLC.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1999). Learning together and alone (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (2000, June). Teaching Students To Be Peacemakers: Results of Twelve Years of Research. Paper presented at Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Convention.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (2002). The Three Cs of promoting social and emotional learning. In J. Zims, R. Weissberg, & H. Walberg, (Eds.). Building school success on social and emotional learning. New York: Teachers College Press.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (1998). Cooperation in the classroom (8th ed.). Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R., & Johnson, F (1976). Promoting constructive conflict in the classroom. Notre Dame Journal of Education, 7, 163-168.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science. New York: Harper. Opotow, S. (1991). Adolescent peer conflicts. Education & Urban Society, 23(4), 416-441.

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David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson

David W. Johnson is a professor of Educational Psychology and Roger T. Johnson is a professor of Curriculum and Instruction, both at the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development.

Copyright Love Publishing Company Feb 2002
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