“Intrinsically, schools are social places and learning is a social process”
Children and young adults spend nearly a quarter of the day in school, and often more when including extracurricular activates, and weekend programs. Schools have many purposes, with a significant one being to challenge students academically, develop critical thinking skills, and prepare students for college. Academic achievement, truancy, dropout rates, are important issues that schools face and are affected by a multitude of factors as well, as schools are embedded within a community, society, and a bureaucracy. Conflict Resolution skills - are skills that are beneficial to any student in any kind of an environment. The starting point of this is that conflict is inherent in life, and that learning is impaired by poorly managed conflict. Whether it is interpersonal, personal, or societal conflicts, conflict resolution skills are tools to enable students to resolve and manage their own conflicts to reduce anxiety and excessive stress and increase resilience. These factors greatly enhance the abilities of students to learn.
Jennifer Batton, “Institutionalizing conflict resolution education: The Ohio model,” Conflict Resolution Quarterly 19, no. 4 (2002): 479-494.
E. O’Farrell, “The effects of participation of school children as mediators in contrast to non-mediators in a mentored mediation program as related to academic achievement, developmental disposition, and conflict orientation” (United States -- California: California State University, Fresno, 2010).
Mark T. Greenberg et al., “Enhancing school-based prevention and youth development through coordinated social, emotional, and academic learning.,” American Psychologist 58, no. 6-7 (2003): 466-474.
Tricia S. Jones, “Conflict Resolution Education: The Field, the Findings, and the Future.”, Fall.
Tricia S. Jones, “The Comprehensive Peer Mediation Evaluation Project: Insights and Directions for Curriculum Integration” (NCIP, June 1998).
Joseph E. Zins, Building academic success on social and emotional learning: what does the research say? (Teachers College Press, 2004).