Conflict Resolution in Schools Risk

Conflict Resolution in Schools

Risk and Insurance

This article focuses on the conflicts that arise in the schools and how conflict resolution may be used to address these issues. In addition to that, the paper also evaluates the conflict resolution process and indicates the factors that affect the success of the process. The paper also focuses on the types of conflicts that are to be resolved.

Conflict Resolution

Conflicts are very likely to occur these days in schools. Any minor competition may become a conflict in a matter of minutes. These conflicts may be a result of opposing ideas in students. So, to avoid these conflicts and fights, conflict resolution skills are needed in every school. Conflict resolution means to resolve the conflict that has been created due to the argument. (Unknown n.d., p. 1)

In conflict resolution, different techniques are used in order to achieve a solution to the problem.

The first technique is negotiation. It requires the involved parties to negotiate the problem and find out a solution without any external help. (Crawford and Bodine 2001, pp. 1-8)

The second technique is mediation in which the conflicting parties are assisted by a neutral person to resolve their conflict. The decision of the mediator is accepted by all the parties.

The third technique is consensus decision making in which all the parties involved in the conflict cast a vote and the most popular solution is accepted by all. These parties may or may not be assisted by a neutral third party. (Crawford and Bodine 2001, pp. 1-8)

Conflict resolution has been and is an effective method to work out a solution to all the conflicts that occur between students in a school. Conflict resolution helps the participating students to openly share their thoughts with each other. The students share information and eventually get to the core reason of the problem on which they are arguing. Both the students then see the other student's perspective and start to understand it. (Crawford and Bodine 2001, pp. 1-8)

Conflict resolution focuses on the peoples' interests rather their positions. Their current position on which they are arguing over a certain issue, is incapable of unveiling the real problem. Their interests, on the other hand, are the main reason why they are arguing in the very first place. So, the process of conflict resolution finds the interests of the people associated with the conflict and then tries to resolve it. (Crawford and Bodine 2001, pp. 1-8)

Moreover, conflict resolution also gives agreements and solutions to mutual gain. This objective is achieved with the help of a mediator. A mediator is a neutral person who overlooks the conflict resolution process and acts as a judge to give a decision that is beneficial for all parties and is accepted by all. (Unknown n.d., p. 1)

Students Who Might Not Respond to Conflict resolution

Despite of conflict resolution being a really efficient technique for resolving conflict that are created day-to-day between students, some students may still not respond to conflict resolution. This may be due to the fact that they are not finding the process fair. In that case, if the student is in the primary grades, he may adjust to it but if any student in higher grades finds the process unfair, he/she will completely become unresponsive to the process. (Townley 1999, pp. 6-16)

Success of Conflict resolution

The success of the process is dependent on multiple factors. The first among them is gender. If the parties involved in the conflict have opposing gender, then a resolution is less likely to be derived. This is because of the difference in the styles of communication and socialization. Men and women both have a different nature by default and they have opposing thoughts that affect the success of the process negatively. (Povenmire 2008, pp. 17-43)

The second factor affecting the success of the process of conflict resolution is race. Race is recognized via skin tone, facial characteristics and accent etc. Race can make the process of conflict resolution more complicated and thus it may affect the success negatively. Sometimes, race may be the sole reason behind the conflict and in that case, extreme care must be exercised in order to avoid the extension of the conflict. (Povenmire 2008, pp. 17-43)

In addition to that, culture is also important in a person's life. It may affect the success negatively if the cultural values of either of the parties are not kept in mind. The conflict will be exacerbated if any party feels that their culture is being insulted. (Povenmire 2008, pp. 17-43)

Moreover, power also plays an important role in the success of the conflict resolution. Power differences are the root cause of all other differences. If either party is more powerful than the other, then, whether or not the process is actually biased, the weaker party will think of it as unfair. The weaker party will assume, due to their lower status, that the solution is favoring their stronger counterparts. The problem exacerbates if the mediator or neutral party is actually biased, in that case whole process becomes useless. (Povenmire 2008, pp. 17-43)