Resolving disputes
Peer mediation in schools
Pupils mediate between their peers, by fixed rules and without a teacher at the table. It works better than it first sounds
In numbers
2
mediators per session
trained pupils of the same age group
5
steps in the conversation
from the rules to the agreement
0
questions of blame
what is settled is the future, not the past
- Origin
- Developed out of mediation, established in German schools since the 1990s
- Where it is used
- Schools, youth work, leisure facilities
- What it takes
- Training over several weeks, a mediation in one session
- Third party
- Two trained peers, no teacher at the table
What is peer mediation?
Peer mediation transfers the procedure of mediation into school life. Trained pupils mediate between classmates, along a fixed sequence and without a teacher sitting at the table.
The training runs for several weeks depending on the programme and covers active listening, conducting a conversation, handling feelings and reading moods. It is delivered in clubs, project weeks or by outside providers.
The difference from the usual handling of conflict in class is the role. A teacher decides, grades and knows the history. Mediating peers do none of that, and that is exactly where their effect comes from.
How does a peer mediation session run?
In five steps: agree the rules, hear both accounts, clarify feelings, collect solutions, write the agreement down. The sequence is deliberately always the same, so that it holds under pressure too.
Two points are decisive. First, no question of blame is settled: the conversation is aimed at what should apply in future, not at who started it. Second, the proposals come from the disputing pupils themselves.
At the end there is a written agreement with a date to check back. Without that date the agreement stays a good intention, and experience in schools shows it is precisely this last step that regularly gets dropped.
When does peer mediation fit?
For conflicts among peers that repeat and disrupt daily life: exclusion at break, arguments over places and belongings, insults, entrenched group conflicts.
It fits because the parties go on dealing with each other. A reprimand ends an incident, not the situation in the class. A result both found themselves keeps working in the same classroom.
According to the specialist bodies, programmes of this kind strengthen social skills and affect the whole school climate, not only the cases mediated. The learning effect reaches the mediators at least as much as the disputants.
Where are the limits of peer mediation?
The clearest limit is violence. Physical assault, bullying and criminal acts do not belong in a mediation between peers but with the adults of the school, and where necessary with outside bodies.
The second limit is imbalance. Where one side is markedly more powerful, voluntariness is only asserted, and a result can be pressure rather than agreement. Recognising such cases in advance is part of the training.
The third limit is organisational, and it is where most programmes fail: without fixed times, a room, a responsible teacher and a steady intake, a peer mediation programme dies out within two year groups.
How do you start with peer mediation?
With the question of who carries it. A programme needs at least one teacher with a defined responsibility and hours for it, otherwise it hangs on volunteers and ends when they leave school.
Then comes the training. There are tested materials and providers for it, including programmes run by youth organisations as clubs in primary and secondary schools. None of it has to be invented.
The third step is the one most often missing: making it known. A mediation service a class does not know about goes unused. Fixed times, a visible room and a short introduction in every class at the start of the year decide how much it is used.
The core
The mediators decide nothing and know nothing better. They only hold the procedure in which two others can settle it.
Sources
The steps
- Agree the rulesAt the start it is settled what applies: let each other finish, no insults, confidentiality, voluntariness. The rules come before the content, because otherwise they would have to be negotiated mid-argument.
- Hear both accountsEach side describes what happened from their point of view. The mediators repeat back what they understood. Nobody contradicts, and nothing is compared.
- Clarify feelingsBoth say how it was for them. This step is why the procedure works in schools: it turns two opponents into two people who went through something.
- Collect solutionsThe disputing pupils propose themselves how things should go on. The mediators collect and do not judge. An outside proposal would be a verdict, and nobody keeps a verdict they did not make.
- AgreementThe result is written down and signed by both, with a date on which someone checks whether it held.
More in this series
- MediationFamily, workplace, neighbourhood, business, environmental and building projectsA third person guides the conversation and decides nothing. That is precisely why the result tends to hold afterwards
- Nonviolent CommunicationEveryday life, work, school, family, mediating between groupsFour steps that turn an accusation into a statement about your own situation. It sounds simple and is the hardest exercise in an argument
From a procedure to a mission of your own
Every one of these methods was developed by people who had a dispute in front of them and wanted to handle it differently. The same stance is what it takes on a small scale: in a neighbourhood, a school, a club.
Find your peace mission