School Conflicts: Causes and Strategies to deal with it

Introduction
Conflicts will always occur since they are fundamental to human nature and are necessary for moral and emotional development. They also exist at every school. The school is situated in a setting where conflict arises frequently and takes significance as a result of the numerous interpersonal interactions that take place in the school environment.

Since conflict arises frequently in schools, it follows that educators need to be adept at handling it positively. It’s critical to deal with conflict head-on and find solutions that are both integrative and constructive while building cooperative connections. In a learning environment, harmony and appreciation should coexist, and disagreement should not adversely affect how students are taught and how they learn.

The diversity of human beings is among their most outstanding traits. Relationships between people are marked by differences in needs, worldviews, and ethical perspectives as well as in ways of being, thinking, and being. In this sense, tension between opposing interests or perspectives is referred to as an interpersonal conflict. Interpersonal conflicts are a natural part of human relationships and can occur in a variety of social settings, including schools.

The school, a microcosm of society, unites many worldviews, ways of thinking, and methods of living, making it a location to symbolise social divisions and a place where various conflicts arise on a daily basis. Dealing with this kind of issue involves learning, which is why teachers need conflict management training so they can appropriately handle disagreements in the classroom and teach your students about conflict management.

Acknowledging that the school is a place that fosters social variety and presuming that interpersonal disagreements are a natural part of human relationships.

School is an ideal environment for the development of conflict situations because of its inherent traits. As a result, the dialectic between the macrostructure of the education system, the broad policies aimed at it, and the management practises that predominate in each school allows us to observe the tension in the educational system.

School conflicts
The school is a microsystem of society where ongoing developments are represented.

As a result, preparing students, teachers, and parents to navigate a world characterised by rapid change and interpersonal tensions is one of the most crucial roles that schools play in supporting each student’s growth. Because it is a microcosm of society and brings together various ways of living, thinking, feeling, and relating, it creates an environment that is conducive to interpersonal disputes.

As a result of the fact that student-student and student-teacher relationships are where school conflicts occur most frequently, school conflict is described as the dispute between individuals or groups about ideas, interests, beliefs, and values within the school community.

According to their root reasons and parties involved, conflicts in school can be categorised. Martinez believes that lack of communication, individual motivations, past disputes, concerns of authority, and ideological and political differences are the main causes of disputes amongst instructors.
Conflicts between students and teachers, according to this author, arise from a variety of factors, including misunderstandings of the teacher’s explanation, arbitrary grades and divergent evaluation criteria, a lack of didactic material, discrimination, disinterest in the course material, and the students’ ears.

Conflicts between students can also result through miscommunication, altercations, fighting, group rivalry, discrimination, bullying, usage of resources and places, dating, sexual harassment, loss or damage to school property, various elections, travel, and partying.

Assaults between students and teachers, lost work materials, issues in the school canteen or a similar setting, a lack of teachers, a lack of pedagogical support from teachers, evaluation, approval and disapproval criteria, and failure to meet administrative and bureaucratic requirements of management can all lead to conflicts between parents, teachers, and administrators.

Conflict in the classroom
Conflicts increase in the complexity of the educational process at the school, where they are frequent and daily in the classrooms.

As a result, several conflict types arise in the classroom, making it difficult for most teachers to handle, manage, and resolve these disputes.
The teacher-student conflict is frequently highlighted by both new and experienced teachers as a frequent occurrence in challenging classrooms. Teachers frequently view confrontations as indiscipline, violence, disrespect, and like any situations threatening his authority. Silva and Flores speak to the detrimental impact that these circumstances have on academic achievement and student motivation in this context, emphasising the urgency of finding ways to prevent or lessen these impacts.

The main causes of the coexistence issues in the classroom are educational and societal changes. There are various conflict situations on this list that teachers could encounter in the course of teaching.

Some of those indicated by the teachers are, namely:
1. The student’s absence, which distracted from the activity;
2. Pupils who have severe communication and learning challenges; pupils who behave aggressively and provocatively in groups during class;
3. Students who exhibit negative attitudes about schoolwork, their own work, or the work of others, as well as hostile and violent behaviour toward teachers and other students;
4. Students who are apathetic and lack excitement in class;
5. In extreme cases, students who act disrespectfully toward the teacher by bringing in and using weapons-capable objects in the classroom.

Strategies to deal with conflicts
These five strategies for conflict management are:
(a)Avoiding: when parties who are in dispute exhibit little concern for the interests of others and little concern for oneself. a strategy when neither its own interests nor those of its opponents are met, and which is characterised by a low level of assertiveness and cooperation;

(b) Dominating: exhibiting a desire to advance one’s own interests at the expense of those of others. high levels of aggressiveness and a lack of cooperation, when the pursuit of goals is prioritised over the interests of the other party Additionally, it is frequently regarded as an aggressive tactic;

(c) Obliging: usually used by people who try to downplay differences and emphasise similarities in order to allay the anxieties of the other party. Represents a conflict-management style in which aggressiveness is low and collaboration is strong;

(d)Integrating: This method is linked to problem-solving because those who employ it manage issues directly and cooperatively while actively striving to work together to find solutions. To use it effectively, one must be open to sharing information, exploring for alternatives, examining differences, and seeking a resolution that works for all parties involved in the conflict.

(e) Compromising: This strategy has elements in common with all of the other four and indicates an effort to modestly and partially meet the interests of all parties involved in the conflict. is a tactic that necessitates assignment and compromise. A compromise is made in the search for an acceptable middle ground stance for all parties engaged in the disagreement. Compromise is an intermediate tactic on assertiveness and cooperation.