Elementary Curriculum about Conflict Resolution: Can Children Handle Global Politics?

Children can develop their capacities to handle both social and interpersonal conflict in elementary school, without sacrificing attention to academic achievement. This case study, based in one grade four and five classroom with a diverse population, shows how a curriculum focusing on the concept of conflict was tied tightly to social studies and other subject area learning goals, and woven around instances of global as well as interpersonal problems. Complex social or political material, which is frequently avoided in the elementary classroom, served to strengthen the curriculum's conceptual framework and to provide entry points for diverse students to comprehend the sources and management of conflict. The paper presents analysis of descriptive vignettes, selected to represent evidence of curriculum process and content and students' developing understandings of conflict.