The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of conflict resolution training on the number and severity of discipline referral offenses committed by high school students in one urban school. Effectiveness was measured by the number and severity of student discipline referrals to the school administration. Additionally, data were gathered and analyzed regarding student perceptions following application of conflict resolution training. The population (N=155) consisted of black and white students in grades nine through 12 who had previously received conflict-related discipline referrals. The samples (n=32) were selected using simple random sampling. Identified students were randomly assigned to one of two groups (treatment v. control). The treatment group received twelve hours of conflict resolution training. In addition, a four hour follow-up training session was conducted 60 days later. The control group did not receive training. Both quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used to determine the effects of conflict resolution training in this study. The independent variables were conflict resolution training, gender, and eligibility. The dependent variables were number of referrals and level of referrals. Data were collected from student discipline records and by conducting focus groups and individual interviews. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS-X). Two three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test all hypotheses. When an alpha level of .05 was used, only the interaction between gender and eligibility was significant with respect to both the number and level of discipline referrals. Further analyses were conducted to "tease apart" the interactions. In order to ascertain participants' perceptions of the effects of conflict resolution training, the qualitative data were content analyzed to record emerging themes. When the data were content analyzed, 10 themes emerged with respect to the participants' perceptions. These themes revealed that participants' perceptions were mostly positive. Participants reported that the training influenced positive changes in their own behavior and the behavior of others. / Ed. D.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / When the child welfare system becomes involved with a family in need of services it does so with the goal of concluding its involvement by finding a safe and permanent placement for the children, ideally with their parents. This challenging and complicated work often has many issues that need to be addressed before a successful closure can occur. To achieve this goal, multiple service providers with various backgrounds, degrees, and professions are tasked with working with each other and the family through a collaborative team called a multidisciplinary team (MDT). However, collaboration is not always guaranteed, and conflict can emerge as the team attempts to best serve the family. This conflict may emerge among professionals and between professionals and the family. Although the underlying factors of collaboration and conflict have been documented and studied, research on the process of resolving conflict when it occurs in MDTs is severely lacking in the literature. Furthermore, MDTs specific to the child welfare system also lack the focus they deserve within the child welfare literature. This grounded theory study addresses the gap by focusing on child welfare MDTs and specifically on home-based therapists (N=20) to determine not only their perceptions of facilitators and barriers to collaboration but also the process that they and their fellow service providers engage in when addressing and resolving conflict. In conducting this qualitative study, this researcher used grounded theory to construct a theory outlining the processes that home-based therapists utilize to resolve conflict within MDTs, starting with the emergence of the conflict and detailing the decision making process through the team’s reaction and the ultimate decision or final result. In the future, these findings could be used to aid and train other MDT members as they face their own conflicts with the hope that a more efficient conflict resolution process will lead to a more effective MDT that keeps its focus on the family and provides the needed treatment and services in a timely manner.

No / Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producing country. Oil generates enormous wealth but also extensive and devastating conflict in the country. High Stakes and Stakeholders critically explores the oil conflict in Nigeria, its evolution, dynamics and most significantly, the interplay and consequences of high stake politics for the reproduction and persistence of the conflict. It presents a conceptual anatomy of state-oil industry-society relations and demonstrates how the embedded material interests and accumulation patterns of different stakeholders underlie, shape and complicate both the oil conflict and security. In addition, the book provides key insights into comparable conflicts elsewhere in the global south, developing a logical framework for resolving the oil conflict in Nigeria and for reforming the security sector.

<p> An important issue in the study of conflict behavior concerns the manner in which one party involved in a conflict situation, can influence his protagonist to resolve the conflict in a way Which is mutually rewarding (i.e. cooperative). The present thesis is addressed to this issue. In order to study the relationship between preasymptotic interaction patterns and stable states of cooperation and conflict, the data from a. variety of two-person, mixed motive games are organized such that: a} criteria are established for defining stable states of cooperation and conflict; b) preasymptotic interaction patterns are clearly distinguished from these stable, asymptotic states; and c) the role of each dyad member is considered separately. </p> <p> Organizing the data in the manner outlined above allows the description of strategies used by real subjects Which lead to high levels or cooperation and conflict. Dyads who attain a high level or cooperation are found to use a cautious trust strategy. This strategy consists of two components, a cooperative signalling component and a firmness component. The cooperative signalling component is operationalized in terms of the difference in the proportion or cooperative choices between one dyad member and the other. The firmness component is operationalized in terms of the level of retaliation against an uncooperative action (D reciprocity). Dyads who attain a high level or conflict. are characterlzed by an inappropriate signalling compcinent, and/or the absence of a firmness component. Data are presented which indicate how the requirements for a successful cooperative signalling component vary as a function of other variables. </p> <p> The implications of focusing on stable outcomes in a conflict situation, and organizing the data in the manner developed here, are discussed in terms of notions current in the psychological literature on conflict behavior. Data from the present thesis are used to argue that strategic variables are relatively more important factors in determining stable outcomes in a particular conflict situation, than either predispositional or personality factors. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Since the end of the Cold War, conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding have risen to the top of the international agenda. The third edition of this hugely popular text explains the key concepts, charts the development of the field, evaluates successes and failures, and assesses the main current challenges and debates in the second decade of the twenty¿first century. Existing material has been thoroughly updated and four new chapters added, on environmental conflict resolution, conflict resolution in the arts and popular culture, conflict resolution in the media and the communications revolution, and theories and critiques of the field. The authors argue that a new form of cosmopolitan conflict resolution is emerging, which offers a hopeful means for human societies to handle their conflicts non¿violently and eventually to transcend and celebrate their differences. Part I offers a comprehensive survey of the theory and practice of conflict resolution. Part II sets the field within the context of rapid global change and addresses the controversies that have surrounded conflict resolution as it has entered the mainstream. Contemporary Conflict Resolution is essential reading for students of peace and security studies, conflict management and international politics, as well as for those working in non¿governmental organizations and think-tanks.

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No / The article is organized into two main parts. First, it presents the termination of the conflict in Sierra Leone as a case-study to examine the degree to which cosmopolitan values connecting peacekeeping and peacebuilding are (or are not) evident. The case-study looks at the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) as a model of successful peacekeeping in the sense that everyday security was provided for the people of Sierra Leone through the deployment of a robust peacekeeping mission. This assessment needs to be qualified in relation to serious deficits still to be addressed in post-conflict peacebuilding, yet the success of this mission does provide encouragement for those who see the construction of a cosmopolitan security architecture for Africa as both desirable and achievable. Second, it explores the degree to which an appropriate model of cosmopolitan peacekeeping might emerge at regional and continental levels in Africa through the development of the African Standby Force (ASF). What the case-study presented here and the survey of the African Union (AU)/ASF in the second part of the article have in common is that taken together, they provide some evidence to suggest that, however fragile, the AU is beginning to define an agenda that represents a continent wide and, in that sense at least, a cosmopolitan response to African security issues.

Yes