Teaching All Students How to Manage Conflicts Constructively: The Peacemakers Program

This article describes the principles, practices, and procedures of the Teaching Students To Be Peacemakers program -a comprehensive, schoolwide conflict resolution and peer mediation training initiative targeting grades 1 through 12. Through the Peacemakers program, students are taught to appreciate and manage conflict and to derive benefit and insights from doing so. They also learn a uniform set of procedures and competencies to resolve conflicts constructively, mediate their disputes themselves, and regulate their own and their schoolmates' behavior. Findings from research studies examining the efficacy and impact of the program in diverse school settings are also presented.