Conflict Resolution Teaches Kids Skills For Adult Life, UF Study Shows

February 22, 1999

GAINESVILLE — Conflicts and violence in the schools are growing problems in society, but University of Florida researchers have found a way to slow their growth.

In a recent project funded by the U.S. Department of Education, UF researchers found conflict resolution and peer mediation programs not only decrease the number of verbal and physical arguments at school, but they also prepare children to deal in constructive ways with the problems they will encounter in their adult lives. The study was among the first to show that schoolwide conflict resolution programs, which are growing in popularity all over the country, can help students approach their conflicts with others in a positive manner.

“Conflict resolution programs give kids the message that it’s OK to talk about their problems and tell others that they’re having problems,” said Stephen Smith, a professor in UF’s College of Education. “Communication is a skill we need to teach kids, and I think they get the message that communication is important when they learn about mediation and conflict resolution.”

In the program Smith and project director Ann Daunic launched in 1995, a core group of student mediators was selected and underwent intensive training for two days. The training included lessons designed to increase the children’s awareness of potential conflicts, their sensitivity toward different points of view, and their ability to discuss differences of opinion and reach common solutions. At the end of their training, they became peer mediators, and they were called upon to solve disputes between their classmates.

In the school that put the program into effect most thoroughly, the number of disciplinary referrals per month was cut almost in half during the 1997-98 school year, from 655 in September, before the program began, to 306 in May, at the end of the school year. Throughout the year, the number of referrals consistently declined.

“This was in direct opposition to the way that schools usually handle conflicts,” Smith said. “Normally, an adult such as a dean or a counselor would make a judgement and provide a resolution, but we’re teaching kids to do that themselves. We’re studying the effects of this program when it is incorporated into a more traditional program, and so far, we’ve found the effects to be very promising.”

The conflict resolution program in the middle schools also included five 50-minute classroom lessons for the students who had not been chosen as mediators. Smith said he hopes to incorporate more conflict resolution lessons into the school curriculum, because the training the children received contributed to a schoolwide atmosphere of increased tolerance and decreased violence.

Smith said conflict resolution programs are most effective when implemented at the middle school level because children between the ages of 11 and 14 are just becoming aware of their own abilities to solve problems.

“This is the age where peer groups really begin to have a serious influence,” he said. “Kids are just beginning to break away from adult influence, and they’re beginning to become more aware of other people’s perspectives. This is a good age to implement a program that puts them in control.”

Although peer mediation and conflict resolution programs are growing in popularity around the country, there has been very little research done into the success of such programs, said Daunic, an assistant scholar in UF’s College of Education.

“A lot of people around the country say that the program is great, but there haven’t been a lot of studies that look at the hard data,” she said. “That’s what this study was designed to do, and that’s what makes it important.”

Not only can conflict resolution programs decrease the number of conflicts at school, but they also teach students to deal with problems at home and with conflicts in general, Smith said.

“I guess the big criteria would be that we’re asking students to manage their own conflicts instead of always deferring those conflicts to adults,” Smith said. “We’re hoping that students are able to carry these skills over into their adult lives.”