Describes methodologies and results for long-term studies of school-based conflict negotiation and mediation programs in rural, suburban, and urban communities for grades kindergarten through nine. As conflict is inevitable in life, learning the skills of successful conflict resolution will help students to increase academic achievement as well as lay the foundation for life-long tools to “self-regulate” and promote positive social, cognitive, and moral development. Regardless of age, the 9-15-hour training program teaches students how to establish a “cooperative context” through cooperative learning, to tackle academic controversies employing newly acquired skills, and to establish a “Peacemaker Program” where students rotate the role of peer conflict mediator. The design of 17 studies, conducted between1988-2000, is presented. Results indicate that after training and curriculum integration (in literature and history units), factual and interpretative learning was higher for conflict resolution trained students than for students without the training. Spontaneous use of the skills in non-academic settings at school and during extracurricular activities is evident as well.
