Dispute management in the schools

In the modern‐day school environment, a serious frustration gap exists between students' expectations of being involved in decisions affecting them and the extent to which they actually are involved. Educators have long supported the notion that students should be given a greater role in determining their own destinies. To test this idea, the Dispute Management in the Schools Project was initiated. This experiment demonstrated that students can manage their own disputes effectively, the school can operationalize the notion of “sociolegal informalism,” and the values emanating from empowerment and voluntarism can be realized by students.