Education Advocacy and Leadership in School Essay

Critique 1

In “Emotion, Emotion Regulation, and Conflict Resolution,” Halperin (2014) examines the ways different emotions like fear or anger have an impact not on creating conflict, but on effectively resolving it. Using examples from large-scale political conflicts like ethnic tensions, Halperin (2014) offers suggestions for how to become more aware of the emotions that naturally arise during conflict, and how to leverage even negative emotions to promote resolution. The author concludes that effective conflict resolution strategy depends on effective emotion regulation.

It is impossible to address conflict resolution without taking into account the role emotions play. Although this is not an experimental research, Halperin (2014) shows how emotion regulation techniques—both indirect and direct—can be used to resolve major conflict. However, emotion regulation depends on the willingness of participants to apply specific techniques and cultivate emotional intelligence and self-awareness. These are challenges to be sure, but they are not insurmountable as long as stakeholders are collectively committed to change.

Because Halperin’s (2014) study applies to large-scale political and ethnic conflicts like those in Israel, the principles should be easily transferred to any organizational setting in which far less is at stake. In particular, the direct and indirect emotion regulation strategies Halperin (2014) offers are useful in any conflict resolution setting. The key now becomes how to implement emotion regulation strategies: how to teach them to education leaders and indeed leaders in both the public and private sector who deal with conflict on a regular basis. I can personally apply the Halperin (2014) research to my own approach to conflict resolution by monitoring my emotions and understanding how to leverage anger and fear to achieve desirable outcomes.

References

Halperin, E. (2014). Emotion, emotion regulation, and conflict resolution. Emotion Review 6(2014): 68-76, DOI: 10.1177/1754073913491844

Critique 2

Prior literature has established mediation as an effective conflict resolution tool in education. This research by Malizia & Jameson (2017) shows how mediation can be taught to students in K-12. Mindfulness practice, social-emotional learning, emotion regulation systems, and other strategies can be taught to peer mediators to build resilience and help both students and educators resolve conflicts peaceably, quickly, and effectively.

Mediation is a complex set of interrelated cognitive and behavioral components. Self-awareness and self-management must be developed concurrently with social awareness, listening skills, and other externalizations during the conflict resolution phase. Core competencies in conflict resolution cannot…