60-page pdf resource kit for presenting restorative conferences which “(involves the gathering of those who have a stake in a particular troublesome situation, to talk together to find ways of making amends) … the purpose of these conferences is to discuss what the problem might be and to pool ideas about what might be most helpful from here, for all concerned, from this pool of ideas should emerge a plan for restoration of the situation… These Conferences offer a helpful step forward by involving a range of participants who both contribute to and are affected by the situation at hand, they promote a spirit of open and direct conversation and add a human touch to the process of addressing transgressions… this Resource Kit represents the culmination of 18 months of work by a group whose links are with restorative justice, Maori protocols, and counsellor training with narrative therapy at the University of Waikato.” Includes bibliography
Archive
Reducing youth crime
4:50 podcast discussing “school-based violence prevention programs [which] have been proven effective at reducing violence, truancy, drug abuse, and delinquency.”
Strategies to prevent youth violence
92-page pdf chapter from “Best Practices of Youth Violence Prevention: A Sourcebook for Community Action,” which investigates “Social-cognitive interventions strive to equip children with the skills they need to deal effectively with difficult social situations, such as being teased or being the last one picked to join a team. They build on Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, which posits that children learn social skills by observing and interacting with parents, adult relatives and friends, teachers, peers, and others in the environment, including media role models (Bandura 1986). Social-cognitive interventions incorporate didactic teaching, modeling, and role-playing to enhance positive social interactions, teach nonviolent methods for resolving conflict, and establish or strengthen nonviolent beliefs in young people … Mentoring—the pairing of a young person with a volunteer who acts as a supportive, nonjudgmental role model—has been touted by many as an excellent means of providing a child or adolescent with a positive adult influence when such an influence does not otherwise exist. Evidence has shown that mentoring can significantly improve school attendance and performance, reduce violent behavior, decrease the likelihood of drug use, and improve relationships with friends and parents.”
Peace education: A pathway to a culture of peace
178-page pdf document which “helps the educator, whether in formal or non formal settings, to understand that peace is a holistic concept and state of being and that it can not be learned in the traditional lecture-note taking-testing framework. Indeed, peace education can be integrated into many disciplines. The culture of peace must replace the culture of violence if we and our home, planet Earth, are to survive … teaching the value of tolerance, understanding and respect for diversity among the school children could be introduced through exposing them to various countries of the world, their geography, history, and culture. At the appropriate levels, curricula must include human rights, the rules governing international law, the United Nations Charter, the goals of our global organization, disarmament, sustainable development and other peace issues. The participation of young people in this process is very essential. Their inputs in terms of their own ideas on how to cooperate with each other in order to eliminate violence in our societies must be fully taken into account. In addition to expanding the capacity of the students to understand the issues, peace education aims particularly at empowering the students, suited to their individual levels, to become agents of peace and nonviolence in their own lives as well as in their interaction with others in every sphere of their existence … We have organized the book into three sections. Part I presents chapters that are meant to help us develop a holistic understanding of peace and peace education. Part II discusses the key themes in peace education. Each chapter starts with a conceptual essay on a theme and is followed by some practical teaching-learning ideas that can either be used in a class or adapted to a community setting. Part III focuses on the peaceable learning climate and the educator, the agent who facilitates the planting and nurturing of the seeds of peace in the learning environment. Finally, the whole school approach is introduced to suggest the need for institutional transformation and the need to move beyond the school towards engagement with other stakeholders in the larger society.”
Social and emotional learning (SEL) and student benefits
12-page pdf document brief which “shares the latest research on the effects of social and emotional learning SEL) on students and includes strategies for implementing SEL, it explains how SEL works, elaborates on how SEL can be an integrative prevention framework that addresses the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) core elements, and spells out implications of the research for SS/HS grantees.”
Peer mediation programs: An end to school violence?
On-line journal article which “focuses on the ineffectiveness of PMPs [Peer Mediation Programs] to combat higher-levels of school violence, part I discusses school violence, both past and present, part II explores the shift from traditional methods of discipline to more proactive and education-based methods that are used in many schools today, part III addresses the fundamentals of peer mediation including what it is and how it is implemented, part IV examines which students PMPs should be targeting and why PMPs fail to prevent them from committing violent acts on their schools, finally, the conclusion recommends ways to reduce conflict in schools.”
Induction pack for tutors of citizenship education: Global conflict
29-page pdf packet to help trainees “understand the nature of global conflict, understand how issues of global conflict relate to citizenship and use issues of global conflict in their teaching in secondary schools.” Includes bibliography.
Briefing paper for trainee teachers of citizenship education: The United Nations
6-page pdf briefing paper which discusses the United Nations, including what it does, myths about the UN and resources for using the UN in teaching students about conflict resolution and citizenship.
Briefing paper for trainee teachers of citizenship education: Resolving conflict between countries
6-page pdf briefing paper which “aims to introduce pupils to the values of open-mindedness and respect for others’ views, teachers should concentrate their approach on analysing with students how such destructive and confrontational situations arise, and how they can be avoided … a commitment by states to this process is articulated in Article 2(3) of the United Nations (UN) Charter, in which they agree to settle their disputes by peaceful means, these means are outlined explicitly in Article 33(1), which proclaims that states “shall seek early settlement of their international disputes by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or other peaceful means of their choice.â€
Briefing paper for trainee teachers of citizenship education: Managing conflict between individuals
9-page pdf paper “written specifically for trainee teachers of citizenship education, it is one of a series of papers that explores the theme of “conflictâ€; this one specifically addressing the issues relating to “resolving conflict between individuals,†the paper aims to help the reader learn more about conflict and to identify the learning opportunities that arise for exploring the issue with young people through citizenship education, using classroom and wider school based activities as well as a community focus.”
Teaching about conflict through citizenship education
18-page pdf article which examined “Through interviews and observations in case study primary and secondary schools in the West Midlands, we therefore explored what was understood by this notion of global citizenship, and under this umbrella, what it was that students and teachers thought should be learned, we found that the most outstanding concern for students was war and conflict – and in the current context, not just historically, after giving some detail of these concerns, this paper attempts to develop a typology of different ways that schools teach about conflict before making more general arguments about the importance of peace education within a citizenship education framework and the role of teachers in tackling both difference and indifference.”
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.
Teaching conflict and conflict resolution in school: (Extra-) curricular considerations
Report that explored “the school factors that influence young people’s developing understandings of war, conflict, and peace … as children grow, they develop understandings about interpersonal and social conflict, about procedures for handling it, and about the violence and war that may emerge when conflicts are not resolved, in school, official curricula guide children’s and adolescents’ development of understanding about war, conflict and peace, at least as powerfully, young people also learn about conflict from the implicit curricula of student activities, teacher and peer responses to political events, school governance, and discipline practices.”
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.
Education for peace: A curriculum framework K-12
14-page pdf document which presents a “conceptual framework from which schools may devise a program comprising the transmission of universal values and enduring attitudes, and the development of skills which will enable our students to become active global citizens … the implementation of this conceptual framework recognizes the practice of peaceful relations at all levels: personal, familial, communal, inter-cultural and global, it entails a process of knowledge acquisition and skill-building which affects the behavior of individuals and groups and provides a model for the formal and informal curriculum of the school, education for Peace is a process and condition which permeates all aspects of school life, with implications for learners, teachers, and administrators and it extends beyond the school to society as a whole.”