Title: Mediation in Education

Title: Mediation in education. A collaborative study between the university and practioner-researchers in the field of education

Authors:

Caetano, Ana Paula, Ph.D. Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Lisbon[1]

Freire, Isabel , Ph.D. Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Lisbon[2]

Abstract

Based on an exploratory study already iniciated, which first results we now communicate, we present a research project about mediation in education. This is a comparative multi-case study, developed by a team research with partnerships in the field, whose case studies had an ethnografic strategy or an action-research strategy.

In the exploratory study we differentiate, in the theme of mediation various specific research problems, several problems and questions, like peer-mediation between pupils, the role of the teacher in the resolution and prevention of the conflicts in the class-group, the effects of the formal structures of mediation in education.

In this exploratory study, the university team researchers, which we coordinate, developed an empirical study using interviews and observations in the field. The multi-case study will be developed between the same team of university researchers and a broader team of practioner-researchers in the field.

Conference paper presented at the European Conference on the Educational Research – Crete – 22-25 September 2004

Key terms: partnership – mediation – case study – exploratory study

1. Introduction

In the present lecture we will present you a first exploratory stage of a more extended research project with which we intend to contribute not only to the knowledge with the Portuguese reality in the field of mediation in education but also to the analysis and construction of the understanding concerning this theme.

The three cases here presented tend to show three different educational realities, not only because they occurred in different educational fields, but also because they constitute different types of mediation, from the mediation at an inter-institutional level to the mediation at a grouped or organizational level. How do these different types of mediation reflect in their own processes, in the role of the mediators and in the effects of mediation? These is our main question.

2. Methodology

The whole project, following two stages and keepimg itself accurate to an ethnographical approach, tends to contribute to the understanding of the mediation processes in the different educational fields.

In the first place, the exploratory phase, three case studies have been developed with the involvement of three research sub-groups, a total of 8 researchers on the ground and two co-ordinating researchers from the university. There are choosen three formal education fields who are part of different levels of the Portuguese education system, since a primary school to the higher education institutions. Each sub-group used specific research instruments and techniques regarding the studied context itself. The semi-directive interview was the common method used in the three studied cases.

At a second stage, we´ll maintain an approach of case studies in fields of mediation that already have been explored, namely the mediation between pairs and tutorials, which proceeds with the study of questions concerning processes of conflict mediation, types of elaborated conflicts, the role of the various participants, purposes and results of mediation.

New themes and questions have been included, such as:

-How to teach students to become peacemakers?

-What kind of representation do the students have concerning their pairs, which in daily school-life, are a kind of conflict-mediators in a more or less informal way?

-Which role do the teachers play, namely the class-tutors, in conflict resolution and prevention?

-How the creation of a structure of supporting the conflict resolution and prevention does reflect in the daily life of a specific school?

In this second stage, the team gets new researchers, who will carry on with sub-projects of research in specific fields, constitute new cases, that once again are registered in the perspective of an ethnographical study (4 cases) or an action- research (two cases), with emphasis on the use of direct and indirect observation techniques (namely by using interviews and questionaires).

The research process will develop through these phases, with the purpose of improving the questions and methodologies of the research, but also in the sense of examining thoroughly the empirical conceptualization, analysis and recognition of this theme.

The work of each sub-group will originate intermediate products, consubstantiated in studies of specific cases and in comparative studies between cases. Each new stage follows a perspective of a replication and deepening of the problem.

The research partnership is systematized in order to create a research net, coordinated by a central team from the university, which is inserted in different educational contexts. The researchers, who work on the field, are the linking elements that cooperate in the acquaintance construction process and this contributes (directly or indirectly) to the transformation of the studied experiences (at short term or at medium term, depending on the researches that have or do not have an action- research orientation).

3. Main concepts

We live in a very complex, accelerated world, where the society considers itself as a society of learning and where the interdependencies multiply in reticular structures. The barriers of all systems tend to open, becoming more vulnerable to multiple influences, the cultures tend to confront each other and talk in dialogue, the economic regulations tend to overlap ideologies and ethic questions. At the same time contrary movements, which are becoming visible, increase the tension and tend to restore old or find new balances by forcing the questioning of the principles and the means and assuring the unpredictability of the ways.

Even the individuals and their relations are guided by instability in a world of convulsion. The schools are micro-societies that “reflect” those tensions and that complexity, where the need for change confronts the resistance to change. Also, it is there that old patterns are questioned and multiple models shock, brought by their protagonists.

The school, established in a different community of itself and different in itself, is in confluence with multiple systems and it cannot be alienated, needing to find structures of interaction and figures that facilitate this interaction. The mediation occurs, in this context, as a central concept that, in a wider perspective of leadership considers that everyone – students and educators – can play an important role. The performance of this role will be formative for every participant, who perform it, permitting the development of socio-affective and communicative competences, so necessary to the assumption of individual reponsability and to the co-paticipation in a society that pretends to be democratic.

The growing worth of human rights and the democratic development of societies and organizations has been reflected in many European countries and also in the USA, and is appointed by some as a boom in mediation (Jares, X., 2002), in such different areas as the judicial, the labour, the familiar and even the area of international relationships.

The introduction of mediation has been slower in the area of education in a formal context. This can be due to a certain persistence of a conservative perception of the pedagogical relationship and to the power relations that have been established, side by side with a slight increase in worth of teachers trainning on human relationships and a very divided perception about educational intervention and school while organization.

However, society in general entrust the school (and the professionals who are part of it, namely the teachers) with the role of a strong contribution for democratic education and for the citizenship education of the new generations. In Portugal this is recorded in the Portuguese Constitution (Fundamental Law) and in the Portuguese Education Act. The general principles and orientations, which derive from there, gain a particular expression in the guiding lines of the courses of the various subjects and trans-disciplinary areas and, in particular, in the recent creation of the subject of Civic Education in the different years of basic school.

Side by side with the preoccupation with citizenship education, the school in general (some schools in a more particular way) confronts itself with an increasing cultural, social and ethic heterogeneity of its students, which is often expressed through the emergence of interpersonal and/or inter-group conflicts, whose resolution is frequently done by using traditional disciplinary methods fixed in every school regulation.

Mediation in education tends to facilitate interactions by solving and preventing problems and conflicts either by offering formal structures that develop negotiation and school conflicts resolution processes or by preparing several protagonists that in their daily life will apply and use these concepts and competences of apprenticeship in the cognitive and social domain. In this sense, it is possible to find different approaches in school mediation, a consequence of an orientation more concentrated on value education, like the «movement of justice and peace» that adopts a more wider concept of conflict, or a more immediate and pragmatic approach, like the experiences in the field of cooperative apprenticeship and mediation between pairs (Van Slyck, M., 1996).

We understand mediation in a very wide sense, but in the first place it constitutes a preventive process. ”The real mediator is someone who, like a “prophet”, possesses a sense of anticipation, by creating passerelles that could restore communication and by solving the misunderstandings and conflicts that may emerge” (Six, J.-F., 1995: 97).

The majority of the school mediation experiences are made in the field of mediation between pairs (between students) and their research reveals the tremendously positive impact that those experiences have on the disciplinary and social school climate. The research also reveals the importance of teaching the conflict mediation not only to find the solutions to solve the emerging conflicts, but also to prevent them, by providing the students with a wide training following the principles of conflict resolution in a negotiated and pacific way, which contributes to the education of citizens with power, critical thoughts and sense of responsability (Cangelosi, 1997). Besides the research of more or less statical intervention programmes, like the American tradition, the educational field constitutes in itself and in the dynamic of the communities’ everyday life, a fertile soil of mediation processes and an research field, where there is much to be done, namely by using methodologies of qualitative nature.

The growing complexity of multiple educacional realities has been increasingly transformed into a tendency of a more widened perception of the role of mediation in the educational context, affecting every sector of the educational community (relation teacher/pupil; relation school/parents; relation between teachers, relation of the central and local administration with the educational community, etc.).

The mediation processes can have very different forms, depending not only on the nature of the conflict, but also on the role of the mediator and the mediation style. Six, J. F. (1995: 33 and following) refers to two different types of mediators, the institutional and the mediator-citizen. While the first is imposed by the organisation, usually to solve or prevent a special kind of problems and, therefore, possesses a position of power, the mediator-citizen emerges out of the group or the community, without any kind of formal power.

In the first case, if the mediator is not sufficiently well prepared to complete a real process of mediation, the mediation could easily slide into an arbitrage process, in which a third person (usually someone with a strong institutional relation) imposes a solution to solve the problems or the conflicts. In real mediation, the one who performs the mediator role “does not practice any kind of power on other involved persons; this person must be neutral and must not take someone´s side, give advices, or tell who is right or wrong; nor is he/she allowed to take decisions; his/her intention is to facilitate the negotiations between the conflict pairs” (Gallardo,M. L . et al., 2003:48). Six, J.-F. Affirms, in the introduction of his previously quoted reference work, that it is necessary that mediation “becomes a space of personal and social creativity, a practice of citizenship” (p. 11). Both types of mediators, institutional and citizen, each one performing his/her specific role, can help developing a culture of citizenship in the different sectores of social life, beginning with the familiar up to the educational and political sector.

The mediation processes are also associated to the concept of conflict, which tacitly underlies it.

Traditionally, the conflict in education has been considered something very negative and something everyone should avoid. However, other conflict approaching perspectives have shown some positive aspects, considering the conflicts a part of social life fundamental for the development and the change of organizations and individuals. Jares, X. R. (2002: 60/74) integrates the different conflict notions, that dominate in education, into three big models: i. technographical-positivistic, ii. hermeneutic-interpretative, iii. critical. In the technographical-positivistic model, the conflict should be avoided by everyone, because it indicates disagreement and personal dissatisfaction, that could lower the productivity and efficiency of the organizations. With the intention of keeping the status quo and the efficiency of the organizations, the administration of the conflict constitutes a way of maintaining the control. The author says by quoting Carr and Kemmis that the hermeneutic-interpretative model replaces ”the cientific notions of explication, prediction and control with the interpretative notions of comprehension, meaning and action”, because “each situation is special and not repeatable and also conditioned by the personal interpretations of each member of the organization”. In this perspective, the conflict may be considered the beginning of the improvement of human relationships in groups, by stimulating interpersonal communication processes. Finally, in the critical model “the conflict is not only considered something natural, inherent in any kind of organization and even in own life, but also it is considered an necessary element for social change”. The conflict resolution occurs not only through the improvement of communication and the interpersonal relations in smaller groups, but also by taking in consideration the characteristics of the contexts in which they are inserted, namely the power relations between the members of the organisations. In this sense, the decision-taking processes are very important for the administration of conflicts, being the negotiation the preferential method.

Besides the fact that schools are organizations in which conflicts are part of the daily life, and therefore they do not distinguish from other organisations, they have the social responsability to educate the new generations, and in this sense, they could perform a unique role in the construction of a more and more necessary peace culture.

4. Presentation of the cases

Case 1 – Mediation in Nursing Education

The first case is a mediation device one between teachers of a Nursing College, the supervisors on the field, the nursing staff of the health institution (where the internship takes place) and the students (who are probationers at this internship). The mediation is done by an element who doesn´t belong to any of these systems, but who is hired by the College in order to carry out the function of a mediator. This is an institutional mediation which is organized in a wider sense, being not restricted to the mediation of conflicts. In a technocratical perspective, conflicts are considered phenomena that should be avoided and it is necessary to have them under control.

The study of this case include interviews with the mediator and the supervisors on the ground.

Case 2 – Class Assemblies

In the second case the mediation is done by the collective of a class of the primary school, organized in an assembly. This assembly, besides other functions, supports the conflicting parts by understanding their problems and by searching for solutions. This mechanism is not only useful for mediation, because in many situation it acts as well as an arbitrator who has the power of decision. The teacher acts like a member of the group. Mediation has therefore interpersonal characteristics and the model which underlies it tacitly is of an interpretative kind. Knowing that, the conflict is considered an interpersonal phenomenon, depending on the personal perspectives of the people involved and offers an opportunity for the expression of disagreements and adjustments of negotiated solutions in order to transform and improve the relationships. This pedagogical practice fits in the pedagogical models of Freinet and Vygotsky, who explain that the development of a child depends a lot on the interpersonal relationships which are established in the midst of the pedagogical groups.

In methodological terms the study that has been carried out is the first step of an action-research process, seen that one of the female researchers was simultaneously the teacher of the class and intended to obtain a bigger comprehension and an improvement of the functioning of the device. The study is based on the analysis of class books, two video observations of class assemblies, assemblies’ acts and student´s essays about the assemblies.