This study sets out to investigate how conflict is managed at schools. The literature
review clearly indicated the complexity of the management of conflict in school
organisations. Schools, by virtue of being social organisations aiming at providing
education services to learners, cannot thrive under conditions of dysfunctional
conflict. However, it is also clear that not all conflict is bad and can be functional in
school improvement and renewal.
The most important aspect pertaining to conflict in schools, is that it must be
managed. This actually implies that conflict has to be managed from its sources,
apparent or potential and that, this must involve a process that ranges from conflict
diagnosis to school organisational learning and effectiveness. This clearly relates
to all types of conflict and includes, conflict resolution, prevention and
management.
The empirical study established that school principals largely used the dominating
and avoiding styles of handling conflict. The variance between categories of
responses indicated that conflict handling styles were used contingent on
situational conditions. To this end, it was found that educators from big schools
showed statistically significant differences with educators from small schools in so
far as principals' conflict handling styles are concerned.
Based on this finding and nothwistanding the results of the frequency analysis
which generally indicated almost equal responses in terms of the agree and
disagree responses, it was concluded that the dominating and avoidng styles, and
to an extent, the compromising styles were used predominantly in the surveyed
schools.
The study thus recommends that peer group and needs-specific capacity building
programmes for school principals should be initiated so as to expose principals to
conflict management learning experiences from practice, and in relaxed
atmospheres facilitated by peer coaching and mentoring.
Keywords: conflict; conflict management; conflict management styles, conflict
theories, conflict models; conflict resolution; organisational conflict / Thesis (M.Ed. (Education Management))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/1860 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Motsiri, Tlhatswane Martha |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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