Policymakers and Administrators
Welcome to the Conflict Resolution Education Connection’s resources for policymakers and administrators. Our goal is to provide information that will support administrators interested in promoting or extending conflict resolution work within education. The sidebar menu to your right provides a listing of the content areas we focus on at this site.

CRE Conference Presentations
Restorative Approaches in Luton Schools
- Presented by: Dr. Belinda Hopkins
- View Presentation and Abstract: Click Here
Conflict Management Skills as Leadership Competencies: A Higher Ed Success Model
- Presented by: Harry Webne-Behrman
- View Presentation and Abstract: Click Here
Successful Maryland School CRE Programs: Highlights of a Statewide Grants Program
- Presented by: Barbara Grochal, University of Maryland King Carey School of Law
- View Presentation and Abstract: Click Here
Transitioning CRE into a Classroom Management Course
- Presented by: Lynnette Mawhinney, Lincoln University
- View Presentation and Abstract: Click Here
Fairfax County Public Schools Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Training 2010
- Presented by: Joan Packer, Swaim Pessaud, Kristen John
- View Presentation and Abstract: Click Here
Peer Mediation Creating Life Long Conflict Practitioners
- Presented by: Mary Alice Smallbone and J. Frank Rizzo
- View Presentation and Abstract: Click Here
Sample Catalog Resources
Below you'll find a randomized listing of up to 20 related items (we may have more...) drawn from our Resource Catalog.
| Resource Title | Description | Links |
|---|---|---|
| Evaluation report on progress made through the OSCE's efforts to unify the Gymnasium Mostar: Summer | 51-page Word evaluation "of the unification of the Gymnasium Mostar in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), as commissioned by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to BiH ... the Gymnasium Mostar was an historic and premier secondary school prior to the war of 1992-1995. It was completely destroyed during the war and had become the centre of an effort to revitalize the historic Mostar downtown. An initiative to restore the multinational and high-quality nature of the school was viewed as an opportunity to use this divided school in this divided city as a model or beacon for potential reform efforts throughout the country." | |
| Extending campus conflict resolution efforts beyond the mediation table | Pdf article from Conflict Management in Higher Education Report, Volume 2, Number 3, (May 2002), which "describes creative responses to campus conflict that don't rely on mediation as their central strategy or approach, providing links to online examples when available." | |
| Recommended Guidelines for Effective Conflict Resolution Education Programs | These Recommended Guidelines for Effective Conflict Resolution Education Programs, released in 2002, are the product of work begun by a committee of the Conflict Resolution Education Network (CREnet) and completed by the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR). The Guidelines outline how elementary and secondary school teachers, administrators, conflict resolution education practitioners, and policy makers can measure progress toward effective conflict resolution education programs. By addressing core goals, components, content and qualities of effective school-based conflict resolution education programs, these Guidelines are intended to also help leaders to make decisions about the resources and strategies needed to support such educational programs in their schools. | |
| Role of conflict/conflict resolution in anti-racism education curriculum | Essay which "examine[s] the role of conflict and conflict resolution in antiracism education curriculum in school settings, the role of explicit antiracist curriculum in facilitating questioning, talk back, rethinking, positive conflict, and re-evaluating, are important conditions in teaching for equity and social justice, the impact of how the curriculum is used will also be analysed and explored throughout this paper." Includes bibliographical references. | |
| Gender Toolkit: A manual for youth peace workers | This guide aims to provide flexible and context-sensitive tools for supporting awareness and gender mainstreaming in youth peacebuilding organisations. It address the challenge of how to include a "gender lens" in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of different projects while integrating gender issues at the structural and organisational levels. These challenges can be addressed first by acknowledging their existence and making corrective entries to the organisations' apparatus of power, and secondly by transforming the challenges into something positive and productive. The 69-page guide provides a short overview of internal gender mainstreaming and gender mainstreaming in project management backed up by checklists and annotated resources in every section, best practices and trouble-shooters, as well as tips, quotes and advice. An appendix provides some activity modules that will lend a hand in addressing gender issues in organisations and projects. | |
| Reaching across boundaries: Talk to create change | 21-page pdf handbook which, "shows you how to conduct Mix It Up Dialogues. In the dialogues, participants will have honest discussions about social boundaries, and they will plan action projects that help cross those boundaries ... Mix It Up Dialogues aren't just about talking, however. They're also about taking action -- changing personal behaviors that may hurt or exclude others and engaging in collective projects to improve school climate." | |
| VOV activities: Strengthening your sense of self-identity, grades 7-12 | 8-page PDF document with activities for 7-12 graders to build communication skills and self-esteem. | |
| Conflict resolution education and peace education: Proven impacts | 25-slide Powerpoint presentation which presents a "review of research examining the impact of conflict resolution education and peace education in schools." | |
| Teacher development for conflict participation: Facilitating learning for "difficult citizenship" | 15-page pdf article which "examines the professional development-related opportunities available to teachers to support their facilitation and teaching for peacebuilding citizenship, the few teacher learning opportunities offered seem unlikely to enhance teachers' capacity to foster diverse students' development of agency for difficult citizenship, much of the explicit professional development available in the schools examined emphasizes teachers' control of students and containment of disruption (peacekeeping), instead of their facilitation of diverse students’ participation in constructive conflict management (peacemaking and peacebuilding), professional learning opportunities are often relegated to short, fragmented occasions, primarily during teachers’ volunteer time after school: this severely limits their potential to foster critical dialogic learning on the difficult issues of citizenship education practice." Includes bibliography. | |
| Digital Pathways for Peace | As peacebuilders place increasing importance on the use of digital technologies to sustain peacebuilding work in this midst of the Covid‑19 pandemic, Peace Direct convened a three‐day online consultation with over 75 practitioners and academics across the globe to share insights and knowledge on how to capitalise on the opportunities for peace that digital technologies provide. The 56-page report is the latest in Peace Direct's series of ‘Local Voices for Peace’ reports. ‘Digital Pathways for Peace: Insights and lessons from a global online consultation’ shares perspectives from local peacebuilders on the benefits and challenges of using technology to build peace, and offers recommendations for policymakers, donors and civil society to harness the capabilities digital technologies offer. | |
| Learning to live together: Building skills, values and attitudes for the 21st Century | 167-page pdf study which, "represents an attempt to interpret the aim of ‘learning to live together’ as a synthesis of many related goals, such as education for peace, human rights, citizenship and health-preserving behaviours. It focuses specifically on the skills, values, attitudes and concepts needed for learning to live together, rather than on ‘knowledge’ objectives. The aim of the study is to discover ‘what works’ in terms of helping students learn to become politely assertive rather than violent, to understand conflict and its prevention, to become mediators, to respect human rights, to become active and responsible members of their communities—as local, national and global citizens, to have balanced relationships with others and neither to coerce others nor be coerced, especially into risky health behaviours ... The recommendation emerging from the study for national policy-makers and curriculum specialists is that a core national team of educators committed to the goals of peace-building, human rights, active citizenship and preventive health should be created, in order to put together and pilot test materials and methodologies related to these goals." | |
| All equal in diversity: International campaign mobilizing schools against racism, discrimination... | 13-page PDF booklet which, "is part of the "All Equal in Diversity†International Campaign Kit comprising a poster and stickers promoting the campaign, an Application Form, a Report Form and Evaluation Questionnaire ... Some 100 schools in Africa, the Americas/Caribbean and Europe participate in the TST [Transatlantic Slave Trade] Education project. Their opinions and commitment have formed the basis of the “All Equal in Diversity†International Campaign. By deepening their understanding of the past, these schools work towards a better understanding of the present so as to build a brighter future based on mutual respect and unity in diversity, thus contributing substantially to the quality of education in the twenty-first century." | |
| Challenges of sexual harassment mediation on campus | Pdf article reprinted from Aug-Sept 1997 issue (Vol. 79 pp. 19-21) of The Fourth R, the Newsletter of the National Association for Mediation in Education examines the use of mediation in college and university sexual harrassment complaints. | |
| SACSC Elementary unit and lesson plans | Web site developed by the Society for Safe and Caring Schools and Communities in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada whose mission "is to encourage home, school and community practices that teach, model and reinforce socially responsible and respectful behaviors, so that living and learning can take place in a safe, caring and inclusive environment. Achieving this mission requires the involvement not only of parents, teachers, and children, but of all the important adults in children’s lives." The site houses a number of lesson plans and educational units "focusing on adult modeling, the SACSC programs prevent negative social behavior through character education, conflict management training and building respect for diversity. They promote a problem-solving approach to discipline that encourages positive social behavior by expecting young people to fix the wrong they have caused, thereby learning from their mistakes." They focus on 5 topics: Living Respectfully; Developing Self-Esteem; Respecting Diversity and Preventing Prejudice; Managing Anger and Dealing with Bullying and Harassment; and Resolving Conflicts Peacefully for grades K-6. | |
| Thinking about variations in campus mediator style | Pdf article from Conflict Management in Higher Education Report, Volume 1, Number 4, (Nov/Dec 2000), which presents different "mediator's style[s] [which] may now be described as bargaining vs therapeutic, problem-solving vs transformative, evaluative vs facilitative, or settlement-oriented vs restorative, among other terms," for campus mediation. | |
| Building for the future: Connecting up with high school mediation program alumni | Pdf article from Conflict Management in Higher Education Report, (Volume 1, Number 1, Jan/Feb 2000), which puts a call out to people and organizations interested in helping to build a national networking system for high school mediation program alumni as they continue their eduacation often at colleges and universities with no mediation programs. | |
| Hip-hop lyrics: Lesson and activity excerpted from the Tanenbaum curriculum COEXIST | 6-page PDF lesson plan to help students (grade 6-12), "learn about Hip-Hop as a form of communication and activism. Students will also learn how to critically read lyrics and how to identify bias or influence in an author’s writing," | |
| Insider's edge, The | Pdf article from Conflict Management in Higher Education Report, Volume 1, Number 2, (March/April 2000), presenting the use of a "designated insider, an individual skilled in conflict intervention who is part of the organization, but not part of the particular department or issue in dispute," in solving workplace conflicts. | |
| Teach kids a lesson ... or help them to learn? | 11-page PDF paper which promotes the idea of restorative justice practices in education as opposed to punitive ones. "Restorative justice philosophy views misbehavior in terms of how it has impacted upon relationships in the school community. Once the harm is acknowledged in a concrete way the process moves beyond harm to ask how can this harm be repaired? If schools are places of learning, where young people are encouraged to be independent and creative thinkers, are able to share their ideas and opinions, learn to accept the view of others, to be responsible and accountable for their learning, it stands to reason that the "punitive school" is being counter productive in achieving these desired outcomes." | |
| From a predominantly white campus to a culturally diverse campus: Implications for mediation | Pdf article reprinted from the June/July 1991 Issue (Vol 33) of The Fourth R, The Newsletter of the National Association for Mediation in Education discusses the notion that when campuses change from homogeneous populations of students to diverse ones that "staff must be trained to deal with and respond to the problems and tensions that are the natural result of the altered campus demographic." The use of the mediation center is seen as an essential tool by which the a campus can smoothly become culturally diverse due to its trained members who take the position that nearly any conflict can be worked out. |