Today’s school It is not always the desired coexistence space for our children and adolescents, In it, curricular and non-curricular influence are organized and planned with the aim of strengthening and building values of coexistence, solidarity and dialogue between subjects.
Schooling ceased to be the only proposal, after the family, for the formation and education of personality. The messages that are transmitted, reconceptualized and produced are not credible, legitimate and viable for certain students, parents and teachers. The practical impact of this has a different nature and affects different facets of human coexistence. We invite you to continue reading this Psychology-Online article if you want to know more about School conflicts: everyone’s problem.
the state of the question
Man has a convivial nature, but this does not deny that social relationships can deteriorate, we are referring to conflicts in human relationships that occur in any of the social settings. Disagreements, interpersonal tensions, intra- or intergroup confrontations that can take on a violent or destructive character, or that damage coexistence and human health. Because?.
This is a pluricausal phenomenon. Some scholars have located the causes in genetic factors, however, after knowing the results of studies of the human genome, about the level of indeterminacy that people are willing to make decisions and that the heritability coefficient is around 60%, It is reaffirmed that human behaviors are not determined biologically (which does not deny their incidence) but rather depend on the social context, the educational contexts and the social situation of the development of the subjects in particular.
At work, due to the significance of schooling influences We make a methodological cut and fundamentally address the school contextknowledgeable about the role of other educational contexts in the socialization of children, adolescents and young people, and who provide information for understanding the topic.
In reflection groups with teachers on “school coexistence” they expressed their perceptions about violence in schools, authority conflicts that arise in educational institutions and the way to resolve them. In addition, they mentioned situations of theft and the establishment of surveillance and security systems that tend to become a way to resolve these problems. Teachers ,They drew attention to the causes outside the educational field, loss of values in society and the media. Others place it in children, adolescents or young people with “problems”.
We have experienced debates of this type with teachers from different Latin American countries. Likewise, news of serious acts of violence in highly developed countries raise alarm signals in educators from different latitudes.
Fortunately, in Cuba these conflicts and violence in schools do not reach the dimension that exists in other countries. Going deeper into the conflicts inherent in interpersonal relationships and the ways to confront them better prepares us to interpret the alarm signals that appear in classrooms and educational institutions in general.
Characteristics of school conflicts
A question asked by a basic secondary school teacher can help us reflect on the matter: What is happening in educational institutions?
When dealing with place of their school and their disciplinary role in today’s society Polinszuk, S. Expresses that “the disciplinary role that the School historically had as a social institution was maintained in the last centuries (19th and 20th centuries) as a space that produced its own disciplinary policies, from micromechanisms of surveillance and social control (Foucault, 1992).
The School, as we currently conceive it, historically emerges as a place of confinement configured within its space with a series of specific purposes and regulations for the channeling of daily practices. (Álvarez, Uría, 1991). The ways of resolving conflicts of authority in the school environment are configured from the devices and institutional hierarchies constituted within said space.” (Polinszuk, S, 2002).
This author tells us about the schooled institutional practices of teachers and about authority conflicts and their contradiction with their methods of resolution. For her part. Other specialists (Ovejero, 1989; Beltrán, 2002; Martínez – Otero, 2001) point out the increase in school conflicts. They recognize the pluricausality of the phenomenon and highlight a combination of factors internal and external to the school environment among which we point out the following:
- Increase in schooling in education. Being an achievement of most countries, the extension of compulsory schooling leads to a greater number of dissatisfied, unmotivated and undisciplined students.
- Increase in students per classroom and per school. Related to the previous factor, there is a progressive increase in enrollment in schools, although the increase in facilities and necessary infrastructure does not behave in the same way. Classrooms are observed in which the physical environment negatively influences the psychological environment due to overcrowding in classrooms, lack of spaces for recess and sports activities, etc.
- Teachers perceive a gradual decrease in authority over students and they maintain traditional superior-subordinate relationships with the application of rigid controls over the behavior of their students.
- Less willingness to comply with certain norms, limits and rules causing a situation of indiscipline on the part of the students.
Conflicts in today’s society
Every social relationship contains elements of conflict, disagreements and opposing interests. The school is an organization and as such its functioning cannot be understood without considering the significance of the conflict. (Johnson, 1972; Ovejero, 1989).
The description of the previously stated reality leads us to return to the different types of approaches that have been made to the school from three educational modalities. (Ghiso, 1998):
- 1st. Conflict and error are denied and punished.
- 2nd. The problematic situation is made invisible and treated in order to control the dysfunctions.
- 3rd Make conflict and error visible, assuming them as dynamic components of the training process.
Conflict is inevitable in human groups and attempts to evade them have had opposite effects, getting worse. School conflicts are no exception. They also have a constructive and destructive potential, depending on the way they are faced and resolved constructively. “It is true that conflict often creates tension, anxiety and annoyance, but like anger, these feelings in and of themselves are not always bad.
They can provide the push and pull necessary for development and growth. We believe that conflict in the classroom can provide creative tension that serves to inspire problem solving and motivate improved individual or group performance. It is a necessary step towards personal learning and towards the process of change (Schmuck and Schmuck, 1983, p.274) in Ovejero, 1989.)
In this same direction, Johnson (1978, p. 301) states in Ovejero, 1989 that school conflict is not only inevitable but is even necessary to combat the school routine and thus facilitate progress in school.
Peiró adds along these lines, the conflict has both functional and dysfunctional aspects, “in reality the functionality or dysfunctionality of a certain behavior always depends on the criteria adopted and the perspective considered. Something functional for the organization may be dysfunctional for some members and vice versa.” (Peiró, 1985, vol II, p.481) in Ovejero, 1989.
The topic of conflict has been studied from three main perspectives (Touzard, 1981) in Ovejero, 1989.
- 1st Psychological: It is located in motivations and individual reactions.
- 2nd Sociological: It is located in social structures and conflictive social entities.
- 3a Psychosocial: It is located in the interaction of individuals with each other or of individuals with the social system.
Understanding conflict from a psychosocial perspective leads to studying the conflict itself, its origin and stages, as well as taking into account the group and the organization in which it takes place.” The studies reviewed show that the structural characteristics of an organization are important elements when it comes to explaining the conflict. frequency, type or intensity of organizational conflicts”. (Peiró, 1985, vol. II, p. 498) in Ovejero, 1989.
Nature of the conflict
Certainly, to understand the nature of conflicts in school it is necessary to define what a conflict is, determine its origin and evaluate its possible functional and dysfunctional consequences. For Deutsch, M. (1969) a conflict exists every time incompatible activities are assigned. When an incompatible action interferes with or obstructs another, it makes it less effective. They can be conflicts:
- Intrapersonalif they originate in a person.
- Intragroupif they originate from a group.
- Interpersonaloriginate from two or more people.
- Intergroupsoriginate from two or more groups.
It is important to make clear that, Conflict arises when the actions of one party affect the other. , otherwise we are in the presence of differences in motives, interests, values, goals, etc. Between groups, people, institutions, and not a conflict (Puard, Ch, 2002)
Causes of conflicts (depending on origin)
1. Differences of knowingbeliefs, values, interests or desires.
2. Lack of sources (money, power, time, space or position)
3. Rivalry, people or groups compete with each other. (Deutsch, 1974)
Types of school conflicts
In the literature of social psychology we find various typologies of conflicts, some coincide although they are called differently, others meet other criteria.
In a study carried out by (Schmuck and Schmuck (1983, p.276-281) in the school environment, four types of conflicts are proposed:
- to) Procedural conflicts: It is characterized by disagreement over actions that must be completed to achieve a goal.
- b) Goal conflicts: It is characterized by the disagreement of the values or objectives to be pursued. It is a little more difficult than the previous one because the solution is not enough to clarify the objectives, but rather it involves changes in the goals of the parties involved.
- c) Conceptual conflicts: Disagreements about ideas, information, theories or opinions. The people involved in the conflict conceive the same phenomenon in a different way. Many times these conflicts become conflicts of procedures or goals.
- d) Interpersonal conflicts: They are characterized by incongruence in needs and personal styles. To the extent that they continue in the…