Is it possible to have a conflict-free existence in such a social association as a secondary school? Definitely yes, if the school is located in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.
The impossibility of excluding conflict situations from everyday life is the path to the development of personal qualities of individuals
In our daily life, the absence of quarrels and personal contradictions is a utopian phenomenon. So that friction and clashes of interests within society do not lead to large or small social catastrophes, one must learn to manage conflicts. After all, what is society? This is the team in which we live and on which we depend - family, school, work. Conflicts should not be left to chance. If there is no way to exclude them from life for good, then learn to change the vectors of conflicts, directing destructive energy from destruction to creation.
The background of conflicts within general secondary education institutions
In order for conflict prevention to be successful, it is necessary to understand the essence of the problems that lead to the aggravation of relations between people. In this article, we will proceed from situations related to the upbringing of children. That is, we will consider the conflict as part of the educational process of a general education institution.
Conflicts related to school life usually affect the interests of younger, middle and older children, their parents or representatives and teachers, and in some cases the administrative and even technical staff of secondary schools.
Prevention and resolution of conflicts that arise in the school environment require a meaningful and thoughtful approach. Social inequality, problems of migrants, age and physiological characteristics - all this dictates a special attitude towards building the structure of relationships between representatives of various social categories. In the context of a secondary school, it is important to build conflict-free relationships not only between students, but also between students and teachers, between teachers and parents, as well as between teachers and other employees of the institution. These are the necessary components of a program for organizing a he althy school life and good prevention of social conflict in the future.
Conflict as a social concept
A conflict is a clash of interests of two or more parties participating in one social process common to them, but for some reason preventing each other from implementingintended goals.
Overcoming the contradictions that led to the emergence of a conflict situation always leads to progress. If it was necessary to resort to the involvement of conservative methods to overcome it, the risk of starting a movement back, in other words, regression, is likely.
Methods of conflict prevention include the designation of the contradictions that caused the emergence of mutually exclusive positions of the subjects, as well as their magnitude. The conflict is facilitated by the parties' awareness of the goals set for them and the determination to achieve them.
Prevention of conflicts in an organization, family or children's team involves identifying the sources of a destructive situation, as well as identifying the driving forces that direct the process to a clash of interests.
Historical paradigms of social conflicts
Historical conflictology has identified two paradigms that prevail in the event of a crisis in relationships - psychological and social.
The psychological cause is the result of differences in temperaments, characters, upbringing and mentality.
The social cause is very often rooted in economic inequality as well as status issues.
The desire to get a more significant and highly paid position in the school, advantages in the distribution of teaching hours push teachers to confront colleagues and oppose themselves to other participants in the social process.
Trying to raise one's status among fellow practitioners also turns children into potential participants in conflict.
Factors associated with conflicts
A conflict in an institution within the same labor collective may arise as a result of a conflict of interests related to the organization of the labor process. It can also be a consequence of the personal identity of individuals. It can be caused by both official and informal relationships between individual members of the team.
It is impossible to completely avoid conflicts in the conditions of a shortage of resources necessary for a conflict-free existence, therefore, prevention and prevention of conflicts is required.
The need to organize conflicts
There are different types of conflicts. Those that we will talk about in this article are related to the organization of the work of a secondary educational institution. Prevention of conflicts in the organization falls on the shoulders of the head of the team. To maintain discipline in the community under his jurisdiction, he must understand the relationship between people better and deeper than ordinary employees, and take into account many reasons that can act destructively on the psychological climate in the team.
To learn how to resist crisis situations, which are conflicts, one should understand the essence of the phenomenon. To understand the nature of the conflict, one must learn to isolate dangerous conjunctions - potential foci that can cause unwanted collisions within society.
Separation of conflicts byspecies
All conflicts can be conditionally divided into several types.
- Socio-psychological, family, domestic, ideological and production-economic conflicts are conflicts united by spheres of manifestation.
- Conflicts are also united by duration and intensity. They can be general and local, sluggish and violent, acute and mild.
- They are divided by subjects, in other words, they can be interpersonal, intergroup, intrapersonal and interpersonal-group.
- Another group combines conflicts by the presence of the subject of the conflict - the so-called real (subjective) conflicts. In the absence of such an object - respectively, unreal, that is, pointless.
- Different causes and sources of occurrence served as a reason for combining into one general group of conflicts of an objective and subjective nature, conflicts of a personal and social orientation, as well as emotional, social and industrial conflicts.
- Another group focuses on the communicative orientation of the conflict. It can be vertical, horizontal or mixed.
Identification and reorientation of the conflict vector
Conflicts, as you know, can have not only a negative connotation, but also a positive one. They can be both destructive and constructive, both destructive and creative. These six dimensions are taken into account in the social impact analysis. Prevention of conflicts at schoolas one of the options for resolving acute situations among adolescents and primary school students, he suggests using the method of reorienting the conflict vector more often.
One more category - inevitable and forced, spontaneous and planned, expedient and provocative, open and veiled. These are all different forms and degrees of collision.
In terms of scale and methods of settlement, conflicts are antagonistic and compromise, solvable, insoluble and partially solvable.
The real (subjective) conflict at the core has clearly defined causes. His goals are limited to what is possible in this particular situation.
Pointless conflict (unreal) is caused by the presence of hidden, accumulated grievances and negative emotions. Such conflict usually has no constructive purpose.
Conjunctions specific to adolescence
Intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup and interpersonal-group conflicts dominate in the school environment.
For the intrapersonal, intra-role and inter-role antagonisms are most characteristic. Inter-role conflict occurs when a person is forced to play two or more roles. Often such situations are expressed in opposition of moral values.
Intrapersonal conflicts include situations of choice in the following situations:
- Choice in the face of an abundance of alternative solutions. Conflict appears when there is doubt.
- Intrapersonal conflict occurs when choosing the best of the bad, as they say, the lesser of the evils. Internal resistance - intrapersonal conflict.
- Conflict of opposing opinions. It occurs when counterparts have a diametrically different attitude to the issue.
Intergroup conflicts arise when points of view do not coincide with the simultaneous need to participate in the joint process of two or more groups that have opposite points of view on the subject. These kinds of situations almost always have a dysfunctional focus.
The division of conflicts listed above is rather conditional. In real life, none of the types occurs in its pure form. But in order for conflict prevention at school to be effective, one should be able to distinguish and systematize complex situations that arise in the process of communication.
Since conflicts are an integral feature of communication within any team, conflict prevention serves to offset the negative consequences of the above phenomenon. It should be noted that skillful conflict management, control over the team of teachers, as well as work with parents can help improve student performance and create a he althy microclimate both in a separate classroom and in the teaching staff of the school as a whole.
Competition as a way to use conflict in the direction of creation
There are various forms of conflict prevention, such as competition. The desire to achieve high results in studies and discipline is one of the forms of stimulating the team to cohesion and mutual respect. However, there are also some pitfalls here. The opposing sides, having united within one of their groups, fence themselves off from rivals. This is fraught with the emergence of intergroup conflicts. The stronger side, having received encouragement, may abandon further struggle, just as the weaker side will cease to strive for victorious results. In such a situation, the management of the teaching staff of the school should be as delicate and reasonable as possible in choosing the goal of the competition. Each participant must have a real chance of winning in a particular competition.
Working with parents as a way to influence the microclimate at school
One of the functions of conflict is to reveal long-standing problems that undermined the microclimate in the organization, that is, in the classroom, at school or in a single family.
Prevention of adolescent conflicts is to conduct class hours dedicated to the problems of children. The work of a school psychologist should be aimed at monitoring the psychological state of schoolchildren. At parent-teacher meetings, part of the time should be devoted to home education, focusing on generally accepted and time-tested moral and ethical standards.
From a functional point of view, the positive and beneficial results of conflicts include the achievement of understanding, the elimination of conformity, the birth of trust, the strengthening of friendships.
The negative (dysfunctional) consequences of the conflict are an increase in hostility within the team, avoiding problems and moving the sphere of interests away from school andeducational to outsiders, sometimes unsafe when it comes to children. As a result, new problems arise, which can affect both children and adults.
Since the functions of the conflict affect both the material and spiritual and moral spheres, letting it take its course means putting these very aspects of the life of the team members at great risk.
You can stop the conflict in the children's team at any stage
You can stop the conflict at any stage. The sooner the problem is identified, the less losses the opposing sides will suffer.
Conflict management is that the conflicting parties or a third party that is not involved in the action, that is, a neutral, arbitrator, are engaged in resolving the situation.
Prevention of conflicts in the team is:
- timely identification of problems that can provoke a conflict, and forecasting the development of the situation;
- preventing some conflicts by stimulating others;
- conflict neutralization.
Measures to prevent the devastating consequences caused by the mutual antagonism of the confrontation participants
Conflict prevention is to prevent the development of a tense situation that could lead to the destruction of the normal microclimate in the team. Preventing failures in the established routine of any organization, including schools, is the task of the head of the enterprise. Prevention of pedagogicalconflicts is the timely tracking of changes that arise in the relationship of subordinates, the ability to foresee the further unfolding of events and the prevention of negative consequences.
Conflict prevention methods include a set of measures. All of them must be strictly followed. Moreover, these methods of conflict prevention should become the leitmotif in organizing the work of such a large and complex in terms of psychophysiological characteristics of the participants in the process, an enterprise, which is a secondary school.
It is necessary to develop social partnership relations both within the teaching staff of teachers and technical staff of an educational institution, and among students. At parent meetings, explanatory work should be carried out to introduce into the minds of parents the need to make joint efforts to raise children in the spirit of collectivism and social activity. Cultivating tolerance and respect for representatives of non-titular nationalities is an effective prevention of interethnic conflicts. At present, this problem is particularly relevant and often becomes the cause of conflict situations.
The leader must build relationships within the team, taking into account the personal characteristics of individuals and their psychological characteristics. When assigning tasks to groups of people, one should give importance to the mutual likes and dislikes of individuals.
Requirements of the Law "On Education", the Labor Code and the Charter of the educationalinstitutions must be strictly observed.
Motivation is another key to influencing the team and a good prevention of conflicts. Skillful possession of the indicated aspect can become an effective assistant in preventing all kinds of unpleasant excesses.
Heads of education and educational work must conduct daily activities to unite students and respond in a timely manner to all sorts of conflicts. Prevention of children's conflicts largely falls on the shoulders of teachers. Children spend most of their time at school. Communication with their parents takes them less time than with their peers. However, the family has a great influence on the mood, performance and social activity of the child. For this reason, the prevention of family conflicts is, to a certain extent, the task of class teachers.
Monitoring and systematization of dangerous conjunctions
Diagnosis of conflicts is aimed at recognizing the source of tension. Socio-psychological diagnostics of the conflict is intended to recognize what impact on the behavior and consciousness of the individual can have one or another development of the event, regardless of whether it is a conflict or not. The adequacy and unambiguity of the perception of the situation, the subjective and objective experiences of the persons involved in the process, as well as the psychology of the conflict itself are the subjects of study of conflictology.
A good preventive measure is the analysis of dysfunctional situations in children's institutions that took place in the past andrecorded in textbooks on pedagogy and social conflictology, as well as the study of various conflicts in the form of training and testing.
Structuring conflict situations
A conflict situation diagnosed at an early stage is much easier to stop without waiting for the critical phase. For this, certain measures must be taken. First of all, it is necessary to outline the structure of the conflict, then draw up a general universal scheme for the development of the situation.
The structure of the conflict includes the following aspects: the subject of the conflict, the subjects of the conflict, the relationship between the conflicting parties and the external social environment that influences the subjects.
The universal scheme consists of two sections - verbal and non-verbal behavior of the parties and attitude to the essence of the conflict, to the actions of the opposite side, to ways to weaken the enemy, to the choice of options aimed at strengthening one's own positions. It is important to find out the attitude of the parties to the extent to which their goal is justified and what means they are ready to invest in its implementation. A special role should be given to actions aimed at creating one's own image and the image of the enemy.
It is very important to determine the ultimate goal of the conflict. Determining and bringing to the attention of the participants the final result of the conflict, that is, what the development of the situation will lead to, in some cases becomes the end of the conflict itself.
To prevent the problem from recurring, the conflict should be worked out in detail in all directions. Timely measures taken in relation to one problem are the prevention of not only similar, but also many other conflicts.
Work on creating a he althy microclimate in any organization, including at school, as well as the prevention of conflicts among participants in the public process should be carried out continuously.
As for the school, the personal composition of the children's educational institution and the social functions assigned to it by society require a particularly careful and balanced approach to the prevention of conflict situations in this particular structure.
