Mediation and Conflict Resolution in Education
Mediation
Mediation occurs when two disagreeing parties cannot resolve an issue on their own and involve a third person, a mediator, to help them find a solution.
Mediator
A mediator, which can be a couple or a person of a higher hierarchical level, facilitates communication between the parties without making decisions or imposing their own judgments and opinions.
Benefits of Mediation
The benefits of using mediation are numerous:
- Faster resolution
- Lower cost
- Privacy and confidentiality
- Conducive environment for addressing the conflict
- Empowers participants to manage their own agreement
- Voluntary participation
- In family mediation, it can help prevent damage to personal and family relationships that can result from lengthy legal proceedings.
Advantages of Mediation
- Preserves relationships between the parties involved.
- Helps people resolve disputes quickly and inexpensively compared to litigation, especially in business, neighbor, family, community, and organizational disputes.
Areas Suitable for Mediation
- Family: family conflicts, child support, child custody, parent-child relationships
- Community: noise complaints, pet issues, use of common areas, community conflicts
- Schools: institutional conflicts, student issues, standards of living
- Education: conflict resolution models where parties seek solutions facilitated by an impartial third party.
Role of the Mediator
It is crucial to understand how to organize mediation workshops and provide practical training that aligns with the realities of each context. Mediators must identify the unique cultural elements that contribute to conflict resolution.
The mediator’s role is paramount in ensuring that conflict mediation is culturally sensitive and utilizes existing resources within the parties’ culture.
Conflicts
Conflicts are situations:
- Where two or more people
- Have opposing or disagreeing
- Interests and/or incompatible positions
- Where emotions and feelings play a significant role
- And where the relationship between the parties may be strengthened or weakened depending on how the conflict is addressed.
School Conflict
Conflicts within the school environment can arise from various relationships and dynamics, including pedagogical relationships (teaching methodologies, assessment methods, curriculum), school life (regulations, discipline), interpersonal relationships, administrative relationships, and relationships with the surrounding environment.
A school conflict may involve several of these issues. Analysis should identify the primary source of tension. Conflict resolution should be guided by two principles: utilizing “regular channels” to reach agreements and ensuring due process, meaning that constitutional rights, internal regulations, and teacher regulations are not violated.
These principles can help prevent violent behavior and the imposition of coercive measures, promoting a positive and constructive approach to conflict resolution.
Non-violent Conflict Resolution
- Negotiation
- Arbitration
- Mediation
Negotiation
Two or more parties in a conflict, whether latent or manifest, or with divergent interests, engage in communication to find a mutually acceptable solution, resulting in a compromise. Negotiation requires both parties to be willing to concede for a win-win outcome. This technique does not involve third parties.
Arbitration
A dispute resolution technique where a third party decides the outcome they deem fair. This is a more traditional approach in school culture, with the role of arbitrator often filled by the principal, counselor, head teacher, or director.
Pedagogical Arbitration
Considering the school context and its educational role, pedagogical arbitration involves an adult with school responsibilities guiding the conflict resolution process. Through a frank, friendly, and safe environment, the arbitrator listens carefully to the parties’ positions and interests to determine a just solution.
It is important to value diversity and difference. We live in a pluralistic world where cooperation and solidarity amidst diversity are sources of mutual enrichment and growth. This contrasts with totalitarian and fascist approaches that enforce uniformity. Living with differences entails acknowledging contrasts, disagreements, disputes, and conflicts.
Policy Framework for Coexistence
Background
Values of Coexistence
Constitutional Organic Law of Education
The Constitutional Organic Law of Education sets minimum requirements for different educational levels and mandates the State’s responsibility to ensure compliance. Article 2 of the LOCE states:
Education is a lifelong process that encompasses different stages of people’s lives and aims to develop their moral, intellectual, artistic, spiritual, and physical capacities through the transmission and cultivation of values, knowledge, and skills framed in our national identity, enabling them to live and participate responsibly and actively in the community.
Characteristics of a Teacher Tutor
A teacher tutor:
- Is innovative
- Is authentic
- Expresses feelings
- Is a person, not just a facilitator of projects
- Is participatory
- Is critical
- Is consistent
- Is skilled
- Believes in what they say and do
- Is assertive and facilitative
- Wants to solve problems
- Learns from others
- Is interested in everything that happens in the group
Types of Violence
Physical
Hitting with hands or objects, slapping, shoving, depriving someone of necessary food or care, tripping, punching, throwing objects, sexual abuse, killing, injuring in any way, stealing.
Verbal
Yelling, insulting, threatening harm, mocking, using derogatory names, humiliating, intimidating with looks, belittling, ridiculing.
Indirect
Excluding someone from a group, befriending someone else as revenge, ignoring, spreading rumors, revealing secrets, speaking ill of someone, criticizing someone’s appearance destructively, isolating someone, excessively watching someone.
Living Values
- Respect for diversity
- Active community participation
- Collaboration
- Autonomy
- Solidarity