Our browseable glossary of terms related to conflict resolution in education provides quick access to terms you may hear used in the field.

Another useful tool for understanding more general education-related terms is the ERIC thesaurus.

• Criteria

  Definition: In principled negotiation and/or mediation, the standards used to determine whether a solution meets the interests of the parties and should be selected

  Related term(s): standards

• Criticism

  Definition: Verbal behavior that attacks the relational partner's personality or character, presents as a general deficit, not of a specific action or issue

  Related term(s): Face attacks, identity threats

• Cultural context

  Definition: the layers of culture that influence our communication in any given interaction

• Cultural display rules

  Definition: rules based on our cultural expectations that guide us in terms of appropriate behavior in a given situation

• Cultural identity

  Definition: views of ourselves that we share with other people in that culture based on influences in the culture

  Related term(s): Ethnic identity, gender identity, national identity, racial identity

• Cultural sensitivity

  Definition: Understanding that there are different emotional cultures as well as the ability to appropriately follow the display rules prescribing and proscribing emotional expression

• Culture

  Definition: shared ways of behaving and interpreting common to an identity group

• Defensive climates

  Definition: a climate or atmosphere that is created when a person perceives or anticipates a threat to their face or identity

  Related term(s): Hostile climates

• Defensive communication

  Definition: Communication that makes someone else more likely to become defensive

  Related term(s): Face-threatening communication

• Defensiveness

  Definition: communication behaviors devoted to resisting or preventing aggression or attack from a relational partner

  Related term(s): Self-protection

• Descriptive communication

  Definition: Non-defensive communication that describes something rather than evaluates

• Direct acknowledgment

  Definition: a confirming behavior that acknowledges the other by directly signaling that you have heard and understand their request or statement

• Disconfirmation

  Definition: behavior that communicates that the sender does not have the right of self-definition

  Related term(s): disrespect

• Display rules

  Definition: a culturally created understanding of how we should strategically show or express something

  Related term(s): Norms of communicating

• Disqualification

  Definition: the most sophisticated form of disconfirmation, looks as if you are responding to the other, but you answer refuses to engage them. Can take one of four forms: disqualify the sender, disqualify the receiver, disqualify the content, disqualify the context