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CRAMSS RESEARCH REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
Conflict Resolution Activities for Middle School Skill-Building:
Review of Research and Theoretical Foundation
Mason Hines
University of Oregon
Abstract
Conflict Resolution Activities for Middle School Skill-Building (CRAMSS) is an online repository of conflict resolution education exercises, designed to engage middle school students in the fun, collaborative learning of appropriate conflict management and problem solving. Conflict resolution education (CRE) programs strive to impart students with nonviolent conflict resolution skills and opportunities for emotional growth. With these, students can create safer learning environments and are betterprepared to peacefully enter a multicultural world. This repository is intendedto aid conflict educators in the achievement of these goals.While by no means a standalone program, these activities align with and supplement existing CRE curricula. Together, the complied activities cover four fundamental subject areas of conflict education: Building a safe learning environment, understanding conflict, emotional awareness and effective communication, and negotiation and mediation skills. They address a variety of concepts including: Emotional vocabulary building, empathy building, active listening, I-messaging, stereotype checks, interest identification, reframing and paraphrasing. Seeking to stretch students’ bodies and minds in the meaningful exploration of conflict, CRAMSS activities should integrate easily intoCRE lesson plans. Their content is informed by both the recurring concepts in prominent CRE programs nationwide and the author’s own experience as a conflict educator. And their process design conforms to fundamental principles of middle school pedagogy. This report details their development and theoretical foundation.
Conflict Resolution Activities for Middle School Skill-Building:
Review of Research and Theoretical Foundation
The winter of 2014 I spent working in conflict education classrooms at three secondary schools in Tillamook and Rockaway Beach, Oregon. These elective classes exposed students to basic conflict theory, its causes and patterns, as well as a foundational framework to effective, non-violent conflict resolution. Students exercised active listening and perspective switching, explored biases and stereotypes, practiced emotion identification and self-expression, and internalized mediation skills such as paraphrasing, brainstorming, and interest finding. I watched middle school students sit circled and discuss the utility and dangers of assumptions. I observed two 8th graders clear the air between 6th grade boys who’d been labeled as bully and bullied. I saw smiles, tears, and flashes of realization. The experience was enormously valuable to my own development as an educator, and more importantly, I sensed that the material we covered was valuable to, and appreciated by, the students involved. Over the course of the term, these students showed palpable growth in emotional awareness, tolerance, mediation and interpersonal problem-solving skills, and group cohesiveness. My experience with these students convinced me of the worth and importance of conflict resolution education (CRE) at the adolescent level. And while anecdotal, this impression is widely corroborated by CRE program evaluations conducted over the past two decades.
Conflict resolution education programs, like the ones I aided, exist in over fifteen thousand public schools nationwide (Jones, 2004). Of these, most are peer mediation programs, but the relative number of process curriculum and whole-school programs is growing. An expanse of literature confirms the benefits of conflict resolution education, like peer mediation and peaceable classroom curriculums, to individual students’ understanding of conflict, scholastic disciplinary systems and school-wide perceptions of conflict more generally. Students participating in school-based conflict resolution training show improved understanding of conflict dynamics and constructive resolution strategies (Daunic, Smith, Robinson, Jones, 2004; Jones & Kmitta, 2000;Johnson & Johnson, 1996a). Studies also consistently show a correlation between the development of peer mediation programs and improved student behavior and overall school climate (Hart & Gunty, 1997;Jones, 2004; Jones & Bodtker, 1999; Johnson & Johnson, 1996a; Johnson, Johnson, Dudley, Fredrickson, & Mitchell, 1997; Lindsay, 1998). Certain studies even suggest that integrated conflict education and conflict education can improve students’ academic performance in core classes, though sufficient research to verify this claim is lacking (Jones, 2004; Johnson & Johnson, 1996a; Stevahn et al., 1996). Moreover, the typical components of conflict resolution programs – building emotional awareness and control, bias checking, perspective switching, and effective communication – seem like especially useful equipment for managing the emotional chaos, increased personal responsibility, and peer group development characteristic of adolescent life (Jung, 2007; Knowles & Brown, 2000; Wiles & Bondi, 1981). Indeed, educators widely agree that “how to get along” and “socialization” are among the most important learning objectives for middle school students (Knowles & Brown, 2000, p. 23).
However, it is not my purpose to prove the worth of conflict resolution training or to persuade schools to adopt conflict education programs. Rather, CRAMSS activities were developed already assuming the benefit of such programs. This repository serves as a resource for schools that recognize these benefits as well,those that have already invested in conflict education and are looking for additional materials. The supplied activities compliment CRE programs and reinforce the essential skills found across conflict resolution curriculums. Additionally, these activities are designed to be appropriate for middle school learners. The concepts covered are developmentallyappropriate for adolescents (roughly ages 10-14), and the scenarios presented reflect issues commonly faced at that age. The following review will (1) briefly outline the existing CRE program types with special emphasis on four prominent approaches, (2) illustrate how the supplied activities align with core competencies of CRE curriculums, (3) explore the pedagogical practices for best engaging middle level learners and promoting safe learning, (4) describe how the supplied activities conform to these practices.
CRE Program Types
Conflict resolution education exists in a wide variety of forms and structures. Some schools maintain CRE initiatives for a few thousand dollars or less -one program manager, a small cadre of students, perhaps a weekend training or field day. Other schools and districts implement programs costing upwards of $50,000 annually, employing specialized conflict educators, student-facilitated conflict management systems, and CR training to all students, teachers, and administrators. Bodine and Crawford (1998) identify four primary approaches to conflict resolution education: Process curriculum, peer mediation, peaceable classrooms, and peaceable schools. Although programs certainly exist outside of this taxonomy, it helpfully distinguishes the bulk of programsin use.
The process curriculum approach describes programs that offer CRE as a distinct discipline, in standalone courses specifically designated to the study of conflict and conflict resolution. These daily or weekly classes are typically billed as extracurricular or “non-core” studies, and cover mediation and negotiation training as well as basic principles of conflict, causes, sequence, and response types. Lesson plans include conflict scenarios, role-plays, learning activities, and class discussion, although more formal lecture-style materials and textbooks are available.
The mediation program approach positions mediation – the use of a neutral third party and process to help reconcile disagreement – as a primary conflict resolution mechanism in schools. Mediation offers disputants an opportunity to advance both their own interests and their relationship through structured information exchange, and share control over the dispute’s terms of agreement or other outcomes. Programs exist for both the training of adults and students as mediators. However, the most common are peer mediation programs in which students learn mediation techniques and processes and use them to help peers negotiate conflict. Peer mediation empowers students to assume a larger role in the management of their behavior. The approach assumes that young people are best equipped to relate to and help communicate the feelings and needs of other young people, and is predicated on the idea that students will more readily abide agreements they help create. Mediation training is normally provided to specially selected students and administered in an intensive, 12-20 hour block (usually over a few school days or weekend). Follow-up lessons and refreshers are often provided and are especially recommended for programs with shorter trainings or when opportunities for real mediations are few.
The peaceable classroom approachintegrates conflict resolution concepts and skills into core subject curricula. Teachers in peaceable classrooms promote “cooperative learning”and “academic controversy” (Johnson & Johnson, 1989) during discussion of standard course material. By fostering a diversity of opinion, teachers help students arrive at and constructively work through teachable conflict moments. When students disagree about the facts, process, or interpretation of an assignment, teachers encourage structured debate, illustrating how controversy can lead to creative solutions and mutually improved understanding of the subject when purposefully examined. Peaceable classrooms are instructor dependent and typically implemented independent of any broader school initiative. Although they are less explicitly taught, students in peaceable classrooms gain many of the same proficiencies as students of process curriculums or peer mediation, including, emotion identification, conflict analysis, listening, expression of interests, brainstorming, and option evaluation.
Lastly, under the peaceable school approach, the principles of cooperation and peaceful conflict resolution are held as the guiding philosophy for operations school-wide. Peaceable schools strive to create safe, cooperative learning environments in which diversity is valued and disagreements are treated as educational opportunities. The peaceable school approach synthesizesprocess curriculums, peer mediation, and peaceable classrooms. The classroom is utilized as both the place in which constructive conflict resolution is learned and the primary setting for its practice. However, the tenants of CRE extend beyond the classroom in a peaceable school; they’re reflected in school disciplinary and decision-making procedures as well as the way in which staff interface with one another and with the community.
CRAMSS activities are incorporable to any of the above approaches, but they’re geared primarily toward to the education of young students and do require designated class time. As such, their content is perhaps best suited to programs practicing the process curriculum or peer mediation approaches. The core competencies outlined in program manuals for these approaches, in particular, heavily informed the development of CRAMSS activities. Following is an overview of such programs, highlighting specifically the foundational capabilities each means to confer on students.
Prominent CRE Program Overview
An offshoot of the Quaker Project on Community Conflict originally deemed Children’s Creative Response to Conflict in 1972, now rebranded Creative Response to Conflict (CRC), is an international organization aimed at teaching nonviolence conflict resolution and social skills. One of the pioneers of school-based conflict resolution education, CRC’s initiatives currently extend to schools, families, communities, LGBTQQ groups, religious programs, and elderly issues. Their work is organized around eight central themes: Cooperation, communication, affirmation, conflict resolution principles, bias awareness, creative problem-solving, mediation, and creative response to bullying. Their school-based initiative involves a series of workshops designed to explore these themes. While all workshops are available, four are especially recommended for children and schools: Conflict resolution, problem solving, bias awareness, and creative response to bullying (crc-global.org). CRC’s conflict resolution workshop defines conflict as a necessary part of life and opportunity for growth. Their emphasis is on creative solutions that minimize the win-lose propensity of conflicts. The CRCproblem-solvingprocess follows four skill areas – fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration – with which students learn to generate options for solution, change their ideas to make them more suitable, think beyond obvious fixes to more creative solutions, and develop solutions fully. Their bias awareness training was developed in response to the large number of conflicts stemming from issues of racism, sexism, homophobia and the like in school settings. This workshop teaches students to identify biases and processes for limiting bias’s effect on behavior and interrupting biased behavior in others (Bodine & Crawford, 1998). Creative response to bullying is one of CRC’s newest themes which concentrates on bullying prevention and intervention as well as the needs of affected students and the dangers of by-standing and labeling (crc-globally.org). Activities geared towards young learners from the original Children’s Creative Response to Conflict are available in The Friendly Classroom for a Small Planet (Prutzman, Stern, Burger, Bodenhamer, 1998).
In the early 1980s, David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson introduced the Teaching Students to be Peacemakers (TSP) program, a CRE approach founded on the principles of social interdependence theory, integrative negotiation, mediation and constructive conflict resolution (Johnson & Johnson, 2004). The TSP program teaches students to embrace the benefits of well-managed conflict and provides procedures for students to regulate and mediate their own disputes. Implementation of the program involves five components “1) a cooperative learning environment; 2) an atmosphere in which the nature and desirability of conflict are understood; 3) a problem-solving negotiation procedure; 4) a peer-mediation procedure; 5) frequent follow-up lessons to refine student’s skills” (Johnson & Johnson, 1996b, p. 323). The TSP program outlines four essential competencies of student peacemakers. Peacemakers are able to recognize conflicts as opportunities for insight and problem solving. This means understanding that conflicts are pervasive in life, and when handled constructively, provide increased appreciation of others’ values and perspectives, resilience in adversity, and strengthened relationships. Peacemakers are able to choose an appropriate conflict strategy,recognizing that the appropriateness of a strategy depends on the relative importance of the disputants’ goals and relationship. Peacemakers can solve problems using negotiation. Negotiation involves the ability to express what you want, how you feel, and the reasons behind your wants and feelings, as well as the ability to take the other’s perspective, the ability to generate options for resolution and to evaluate and choose the wisest of those options. Finally, peacemakers can mediate other’s conflicts using a prescribed process (Johnson & Johnson, 2004).
Out of Brooklyn, New York, The Resolving Conflicts Creatively Program (RCCP) founded in 1985 is a peaceable schools initiative rooted in the conviction that “the ability to manage our emotions, resolve conflicts, and interrupt biases are fundamental skills – skills that can and must be taught” (Lantieri & Patti, 1996, p. 3). The landmark book, Waging Peace in Our Schools, offers direction for complete implementation of the RCCP program, including an overview of the program’s core curriculum for students. The RCCP identifies fiveskills of conflict resolution: Defining conflict, approaches and styles, win-win negotiation, active listening, I-messages. The RCCP program seeks to disassociate conflict from violence, and to instill students with an understanding of conflict as a natural part of growth. The program teaches approaches and styles for responding to conflict, among them Fisher and Ury’s (1991) distinction between soft, hard, and principled negotiation, as well as Kreidler’s (1994) CAPS approach. Under the RCCP program, the preferred approach to student dispute resolution is win-win negotiation, a process in which students identify their interests, present and actively listen to the other’s interests, brainstorm possible solutions to the problem, eliminate unacceptable solutions, and arrive at and act on the solution that bests serves both party’s interests. Inherent to this process are two skills paramount to the RCCP’s curriculum, active listening and I-messages. Active listening involves setting one’s personal agenda aside in order to provide true attention to another’s perspective. The skill incorporates a variety of techniques: Paraphrasing, clarifying, encouragement, and validation. I-messages, the RCCP’s unit blocks of self-expression, are formulated “I feel… when you… because… and I would like,” and used to communicate the speaker’s subjective experience without accusation. The RCCP program also encourages mediation when disputes require an intermediary. The mediation process can be facilitated by adults or taught to students in the fashion of peer mediation.
A product of the Community Boards of San Francisco neighbor program, The Conflict Manager Program is one of the nation’s most acclaimed and widely-used peer mediation approaches. Conflict managers are trained to interrupt disputes in non-classroom school settings such as the cafeteria and playground and to serve as peer mediators, helping other students resolve conflicts using a prescribed problem-solving process (communityboards.org). Training curricula are available for the elementary, middle and high school levels and constitute roughly 15 hours of intensive training plus regular follow-ups for continued skill building. Middle school conflict managers are taught three broad concepts: Understanding conflict, communication and the conflict management process. Conflict managers understand the positive value of conflict and basic conflict resolution styles. Communication in conflict training includes active listening techniques and I-message formulation as well as discussion of the components of communication and common barriers. The program’s mediation procedure, TheConflict Management Process, uses four steps encompassed in the mnemonicT-A-L-K: “Tell your story, Ask for what you need, Look for all possible solutions, and Keep what works for you” (Sanders & Iverson, 2003). This process is both demonstrated for students by trainers and then practicedusing a series of role-plays. Focused on the implementation of peer mediation in the 1980s, The Conflict Manager Program has since evolved into whole-school conflict resolution approach dedicated to the belief that schools benefit most when all school constituents are exposed to effective conflict resolution concepts and skills. The program now includes full administrator and staff training, parent involvement, and partnerships between schools and community mediation programs (Bodine & Crawford, 1998).