Volume 4, Number 3

In this issue:

From the Director:
Changing of the Guard

Peer Mediation Programs: Benefits and Key Elements

Teaching Students to be Peacemakers

Research/ Practice index

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CAREI > Research/Practice Newsletter

Teaching Students to be Peacemakers

David W. Johnson, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota
Roger T. Johnson, Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota.

The Johnsons are also co-directors of the Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota.

"John pushed Perry down and so Perry kicked him."

"Sally and Juanita were spitting in each other's faces
and calling each other names."

"Tyler threatened to beat up Richard. Richard said if Tyler
tried to do anything he would get even.

Schools are full of conflict. In fact, the frequency and severity of conflicts seem to be increasing, so that for the first time, the category "fighting, violence, and gangs" has tied for the number one position with "lack of discipline" as the largest problem confronting local public schools (Elam, Rose, & Harris, 1994).

However, conflict is not the problem; it is part of the solution. When managed constructively, conflicts can:

• increase achievement and long-term retention of academic material,
• increase the use of high-level cognitive and moral reasoning,
• increase healthy cognitive and social development,
• focus attention on problems and increase the energy to solve them,
• clarify identity, commitments, and values,
• clarify how one may need to change,
• release anger, anxiety, insecurity, and sadness,
• strengthen relationships by increasing one's confidence that disagreements can be resolved, keeping the relationship clear of irritations and resentments, and
• be fun.

To realize the dual goals of order/peace and high quality education, schools must manage conflict constructively. Students must be taught to become peacemakers through the following steps (Johnson & Johnson, 1995a, 1995b):

1. Create a cooperative context.
2. Teach students to understand the nature and desirability of conflict.
3. Teach students the problem-solving negotiation procedure.
4. Teach students how to mediate their schoolmates' conflicts.
5. Implement peer mediation programs.
6. Teach follow-up lessons to refine and upgrade students' skills in using negotiation and mediation procedures.
7. Repeat the above six steps each year from the first through twelfth grades.
   

Step One: Creating a Cooperative Context

If conflicts are to be managed constructively, they must occur in a cooperative, not a competitive context. It makes little sense to teach students to manage conflicts constructively if the school is structured so that students are pitted against each other in competition for scarce rewards (like teacher attention and grades of "A"). In competition, rewards are restricted to the few who perform the best (Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Competitors tend to have a short-term time orientation, focus all their energies on winning, misperceive each other's position and motivations, be suspicious of each other, deny the legitimacy of others' needs and feelings, and see the situation only from their own perspective. When conflict resolution and peer mediation programs are implemented in the existing competitive/individualistic context of schools, their effectiveness can be severely compromised.

In order for conflicts to be resolved constructively, a cooperative environment must be established. In a cooperative context, all participants are committed to achieving mutual goals (Deutsch, 1973; Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Conflicts tend to be defined as mutual problems to be solved to the benefit of everyone. Cooperators tend to have a long-term time orientation, focus their energies both on achieving goals and on maintaining good work ing relationships with others. They communicate frequently and accurately with each other and perceive other participants' positions and motivations. They trust and like each other and respond helpfully to each other's requests. They recognize the legitimacy of each other's interests, and search for a solution accommodating the needs of both sides.

A cooperative context is most easily established by structuring the majority of learning situations cooperatively (Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1993). Hundreds of studies indicate that cooperative learning promotes greater effort to achieve, more positive relationships among students, and greater psychological adjustment (Johnson & Johnson, 1989). When conflict resolution and peer mediation programs are implement ed in a cooperative learning context, their effectiveness tends to be enhanced.

Step Two: Teaching Students the Nature and Desirability of Conflict

Many students see conflicts as involving anger, hostility, and violence. They don't recognize that conflicts can result in insight, learning, problem solving, and laughter.  In Step Two, students are taught (a) what is and is not a conflict, (b) the criteria for determining whether a conflict is resolved constructively, and (c)-the value of conflict. Through participating in conflict simulations, students become more aware of how they act when involved in a conflict.

Step Three: Teaching All Students the Problem-solving Negotiation Procedure

The heart of conflict resolution training is teaching students how to negotiate constructive resolutions to their conflicts. It is not enough to tell students to "be nice" or "talk it out," or "solve your problem." All students in all schools need to learn how to engage in problem-solving negotiations.

There are two types of negotiations:

• distributive or "win-lose" in which one benefits only if the opponent agrees to make a concession
• integrative or problem solving in which disputants work together to create an agreement that benefits everyone involved.

In ongoing relationships only a problem solving approach to negotiations is constructive. The steps in using problem solving negotiations are (Johnson & Johnson, 1995a, 1995b):

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

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

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

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 is. . ." This includes understanding the perspective of the opposing disputant and being able to see the problem from both perspectives simultaneously.

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.

Choosing one plan and formalizing the agreement with a hand shake. "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 over and over again until it becomes an automatic habit pattern.

Step Four: Teaching All Students to Mediate Schoolmates' Conflicts

All students should be 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. Mediation is not arbitration. Arbitration is the submission of a dispute to a disinterested third party (such as a teacher or principal) who makes a final and binding judgment as to how the conflict will be resolved.

Mediation consists of four steps (Johnson & Johnson, 1995a)::

Ending hostilities: Break up hostile encounters and cool off students.

Ensuring disputants are committed to the mediation process: To ensure that disputants are committed to the mediation process and are ready to negotiate in good faith, the mediator introduces the process of mediation and sets the ground rules.

The mediator first introduces himself/herself. The mediator asks 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 am neutral. I will not take sides or attempt to decide who is right or wrong. I will 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 (1) agree to solve the problem, (2) no name calling, (3) do not interrupt, (4) be as honest as you can, (5) if you agree to a solution, you must abide by it (you must do what you have agreed to do) and (6) anything said in mediation is confidential (you, the mediator, will not tell anyone what is said)."

Helping disputants successfully negotiate with each other: The disputants are carefully taken through the negotiation sequence of (a) jointly defining the conflict by both persons stating what they want and how they feel, (b) exchanging reasons, (c) reversing perspectives so that each person is able to present the other's position and feelings to the other's satisfaction, (d) inventing at least three options for mutual benefit, and (e) reaching a wise agreement and shaking hands.

Formalizing the agreement: The="" agreement="" is="" solidified="" into="" a="" contract.="" Disputants="" must="" agree="" to="" abide="" by="" their="" final="" decision="" and="" in="" many="" ways="" the="" mediator="" becomes="" "the="" keeper="" of="" the="" contract."

Step Five: Implementing the Peacemaker Program

Once students understand how to negotiate and mediate, the teacher implements the peacemaker program. Each day the teacher selects two class members to serve as official mediators. Any conflicts 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 occur in the classroom or school. The role of mediator is rotated so that all students in the class or school serve as mediators an equal amount of time. Initially, students mediate in pairs. This ensures that shy or nonverbal students get the same amount of experience as more extroverted and verbally fluent students. Mediating classmates' conflicts is perhaps the most effective way of teaching students the need for the skillful use of each step of the negotiation procedure.

If peer mediation fails, the teacher mediates the conflict. If teacher mediation fails, the teacher arbitrates by deciding who is right and who is wrong. If that fails, the 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 school-wide discipline program focused on empowering students to regulate and control their own and their classmates actions. Teachers and administrators are freed to spend more of their energies on instruction.

Step Six: Continuing Lessons to Refine and Upgrade Students' Skills

Additional lessons are needed at least twice a week to refine and upgrade students' skills in using the negotiation and mediation procedures. Gaining real expertise in resolving conflicts constructively takes years of training and practice. A few hours of training is clearly not sufficient. 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. All literature, history, and science involves conflict. Almost any lesson in these subject areas can be modified to include role playing situations in which the negotiation and/or mediation procedures are used. In our recent research, for example, we focused on integrating peacemaker training into English literature units involving the study of a novel. Each of the major conflicts in the novel was used to teach negotiation and/or mediation procedures. Through role play, students used the procedures to resolve the conflicts in the novel constructively. With some training, it is not difficult for teachers to integrate the peacemaker program into academic units.

Step Seven: Repeating the Above Steps Each Year Through Twelfth Grade

Teaching Students to be Peacemakers is a 12-year spiral program that is re-taught each year in a more sophisticated and complex way. It takes years to become competent in resolving conflicts. A few hours of training is not enough to give students a high level of competence in managing their conflicts constructively.

Development of the Peacemaker Program

We began the Teaching Students to be Peacemakers program in the 1960's. It originated from our research on integrative negotiations and conflict, our development of social interdependence theory and our training of thousands of elementary, secondary, and college students, faculty and administrators in how to manage conflicts constructively. We have established a net work of school districts using the Peacemaker Program throughout North America, Europe, and several other countries in Asia, Central and South America, the Middle East, and Africa. Besides students, teachers, and administrators, we have taught delinquents, runaways, drug-abusers, and married couples in therapy how to manage their conflicts more constructively.

Through the interaction between theory, research, and practice, our Peacemaker Program has grown and developed and been field-tested in a wide variety of school districts, countries, and cultures.

Research on Peacemaker Program

We have conducted over twelve studies on the effectiveness of the Teaching Students to be Peacemakers Program (Johnson & Johnson, 1995e, 1997; Johnson, Johnson & Stevahn, 1995). The studies focused on peer mediation programs in elementary, middle school, and high school settings. The programs were evaluated over a period of several months to a year. The schools were in urban and suburban school districts. Students varied from lower to upper middle class and were from diverse ethnic and cultural back grounds. Mediators were drawn from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. The studies were carefully controlled field-experimental studies with high internal and external validity.

The findings of our research indicate that before training, students engage in conflicts daily and generally manage them through trying to win 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 seem to lack all knowledge of how to engage in problem-solving, integrative negotiations.s.

After the peacemaker training, students knew the negotiation and mediation procedures, retained their knowledge throughout the school year, were able to apply the procedures to conflicts in school as well as non-classroom settings. When given the option, student engaged in problem-solving rather than win-lose negotiations. The number of discipline problems the teacher had to deal with decreased by about 60 percent; referrals to the principal dropped about 95 percent. The results further demonstrated that when the peacemaker training was integrated into academic units, not only did the students learn how to negotiate and mediate, they also achieved higher on tests of academic learning. Students developed more positive attitudes toward conflict and adults in the school.

Parents also 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 the next year. A number of parents requested that they receive the training so they could use the procedures to improve conflict management within the family.

School Discipline Program

Most discipline programs depend on adults administering external rewards and punishment. Adults in the school monitor student behavior, determine whether it is or is not within the bounds of acceptability, and force students to stop inappropriate actions. When the infractions are minor, the staff often arbitrate ("The pencil belongs to Mary, Jane be quiet and sit down.") or cajole students to end hostilities ("Let's forgive and forget. Shake hands and be friends."). If that does not work, 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 schools. Such 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 students are under surveillance. 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 person al lives at home, in school, at work, and in the community.

Many parents whose children were not part of the project requested that their children receive the training the next year. A number of parents requested that they receive the training so they could use the procedures to improve conflict management within the family. Teachers and administrators are freed to spend more of their energies on instruction

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 start and stop activities according to the situation. Self-regulation is a central and significant hallmark of cognitive and social development. In interaction with other people, students have to monitor, modify, refine, and change how they behave in order to act appropriately and competently.

If students are to learn how to regulate their behavior they must have opportunities to make decisions regarding how to behave and follow through on those decisions. Allowing students to be joint architects in matters affect ing them promotes feelings of control and autonomy. Teachers and administrators can concentrate on instruction rather than control.

A Life-Long Advantage

A number of recent 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 their careers. Because conflicts occur continually, and because so many people are so unskilled in man aging 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 how. Knowing how to resolve conflicts with skill and grace will give students "a develop mental advantage" and increase their future academic and career success, improve the quality of relationships with friends, colleagues, and family, and generally enhance their life-long happiness.

Summary and Conclusions

Schools are remiss in avoiding conflict and need to encourage conflict to occur naturally among students and between students and faculty. Conflict has many positive outcomes that can never occur unless it is encouraged. The problem facing schools is not how to reduce conflicts, but rather how to increase the occurrence of conflicts while ensuring that they are managed constructively.

When students are taught how to negotiate and are given opportunities to mediate their classmates conflicts, they are given procedures and competencies to (a) regulate their behavior through self-monitoring, (b) judge what is appropriate given the situation and the perspective of the other person, and (c) modify how they behave accordingly. Students then may resolve their dispute themselves, in mutually satisfactory ways, without having to engage the attention of a teacher. This empowers students and allows teachers and administrators to spend more time on instruction.n.

Teaching all students negotiation and mediation procedures and skills and implementing a peer mediation program results in a school-wide discipline program which empowers students to regulate and control their own actions When a conflict occurs, the students involved first try to negotiate a resolution. If that fails, additional procedures are in place to continue a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Every student needs to learn how to manage conflicts constructively. Without training, many students may 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 set tings.

There is no reason to expect, however, that the process will be easy or quick. It took over 30 years to reduce smoking in America. It took over 20 years to reduce drunk driving. It may take even longer to ensure that children and adolescents can manage conflicts constructively. The more years students spend learning and practicing negotiation and mediation, the more likely they will be to actually use the procedures skillfully both in the classroom and beyond the school door.

References

Deutsch, M. (1949). A Theory of cooperation and competition. Human Relations, 2, 129-152.

Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Elam, S., Rose, L., & Gallup, A. (1994, September). The 26th annual Gallup pool of the public's attitudes toward the public schools. Phi Delta Kappa, 76, 41-56.

Johnson, D.W. (1967). The use of role reversal in intergroup competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7, 135-141.

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

Johnson, D.W. (1971a). Role reversal: A summary and review of the research. International Journal of Group Tensions, 1, 318-334.

Johnson, D.W. (1971b). Students against the school establishment: Crisis intervention in school conflicts and organizational change. Journal of School Psychology, 9, 84-92.

Johnson, D.W., (1974). Communication and the inducement of cooperative behavior in conflicts: A critical review. Speech Monographs, 41, 64-78.

Johnson, D.W. (9183). Resolving marital conflicts constructively. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

Johnson, D.W. (1972/1993). Reaching out: Interpersonal effectiveness and self-actualization (5th ed.). Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Johnson, D.W., & Johnson, F. (1975/1994). Joining together: Group theory and group skills (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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. (1987). Creative conflict. Edina, MN: Interaction Book.

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

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

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

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

Johnson, D.W., & Johnson, R. (1995e). Teaching students to be peace makers: Results of five years of research. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology.

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

Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., & Stevahn, L. (1995). Three new studies on conflict resolution/peer mediation training. Paper presented at the annual meeting of National Association for Mediation Education (NAME), Seattle.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science. New York: Harper

Watson, G., & Johnson, D.W. (1972). Social psychology: Issues and insights (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott.