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"I know she was lying," Estella said of the 3rd-grade girl, "because she wouldn't look me in the eyes." Estella, in 6th grade, is part of her elementary school's conflict mediation team. She's been trained to help her classmates resolve conflict that happens during recess and lunch play. Estella and her "Peace Team," as the conflict mediators are called, have been trained on skills that include tips that indicate when a person is not telling the truth.
Unfortunately, what Estella hasn't been trained on are the personal and cultural dynamics inherent in conflict and conflict resolution. For instance, in some cultures, children are taught to avert their gaze to those in authority. Was the 3rd-grader lying, or just responding in a culturally appropriate manner to Estella?
Many educators believe that students speaking and mediating their peers is the best way to not only resolve conflict, but to prepare children for life as democratic citizens. Attitudes toward conflict and conflict resolution are shaped by people's cultural backgrounds and life experiences, however, and, in our multicultural society, conflict resolution programs must be sensitive to the many cultural nuances involved in cross-cultural communication.
First, it's important for each of us to understand our own multicultural selves and the cultural norms that shape the way we see and interact with the world. This allows us, second of all, to suspend judgment and explore the ways that others communicate from their cultural norms as well. Third, we must always guard against the tendency to believe that everyone within a given identity group believes the same way (stereotyping.) Finally, we can learn much from those who have left steppingstones for us to follow.
This edition of The Anti-Bias Classroom (The ABCs) seeks to introduce culturally responsive conflict resolution. Cross-cultural awareness and culturally sensitive communication skills are critical elements of effective conflict resolution models.
Jeff Sapp is professor of education at California State University Dominguez Hills and Lecia Brooks is director of the Civil Rights Memorial Center. They extend special thanks to Samantha Briggs, Rod Davis, Tafeni English, Michelle Garcia, Jennifer Holladay and Rhonda Thomason of Teaching Tolerance, as well as Nancy Erbe, author of Holding These Truths: Empowerment and Recognition in Action: Interactive Case Study Curriculum for Multicultural Dispute Resolution, for their comments and guidance.
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