Rationales - Why Conflict Resolution
Matters to Students
Conflict is essentially
a fact of student life. Students experience all the daily problems
of living and working together that we all grapple with. They
(especially undergraduates) also experience interactions with
people who are different from themselves (different in race, culture,
sexual preference, ethnicity, or religion) and from people they
have known before. Fears rooted in stereotypes (their own and
others) and fears of confronting those stereotypes may surface.
Students also face personality conflicts and conflicts stemming
from testing boundaries and learning the real meaning of independence
and personal and group responsibility. Testing the limits of drinking,
smoking, drugs, and sex is a way of learning -- but quite often
through conflict -- what is acceptable behavior for themselves
and for others.
Students must also face conflicts with landlords, merchants,
and roommates that arise from errors in managing their finances.
And in the academic realm, they find out whether their standards
for work are acceptable -- both in content and in honesty.
In all these categories, students learn lessons about how to
handle conflict from the institution and from their peers. Since
few 18-year olds have developed good conflict resolution skills,
using each other as models of how to manage and solve conflicts
is often ineffective. Research on roommates in conflict suggests
that typical first and second year students are often not developmentally
prepared to effectively negotiate interpersonal conflicts with
roommates on their own. As a result, the ways an college handles
conflict must serve not only to maintain rules and order, but
also to teach conflict resolution. Mediation is equipped to do
this.
From a students' point of view the option of using mediation
to resolve conflicts can be important for a number of different
reasons depending on their circumstance.
- Students often don't want to have to get other students (roommates,
coworkers, classmates) into trouble with "the system" in order
to address interpersonal problems.
- Students appreciate having someone else (e.g. mediators) available
to assist when they need to address a problem with a staff or
faculty member who is older, more experienced, or more powerful.
- Students appreciate services like mediation that can address
off-campus as well as on-campus life, providing tangible support
solving troubling problems involving summer sublets, landlords,
and neighbors.
- Being in conflict with someone who shares your major or social
circles can be very uncomfortable and can go on for years. Mediation
can help prevent escalation and prolongation of conflicts disrupting
students' social and academic lives.
- Many students are involved in intimate relationships that
then break up. Mediation can help formerly romantic partners
who must still live or work or go to class together to clarify
and realign their relationships.
- Mediation provides students with a new way, in addition to
fighting with or avoiding the other, to approach each other
and deal with disputes. This can mean a second chance for friendships
that might otherwise have been lost due to the negative effects
of conflict unresolved.
- An increasing number of students enjoy and benefit from learning
opportunities available as a volunteer or intern at a mediation
center.
On many campuses students have been the most vocal supporters
of mediation programs. Numerous peer mediation programs are being
run as student organizations, relying primarily on student volunteers.
As a case in point, Scott Pence, one of the founders of Student
Dispute Resolution Program at the University of Michigan explained
his situation as follows:
I had been trained as a mediator in high school, and learned
what a valuable resource the process could be for people in
conflict. I expected to serve as a mediator in college, however,
when I arrived at the University of Michigan, I could not locate
a firm to which I could offer my services. (Pence, 1996 p. 1)
As more and more students come out of high schools that have
mediation programs, student support and interest in campus mediation
is very likely to increase.
|
