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Peace Building and Conflict Resolution inPreschool ChildrenAnita Vestal a & Nancy Aaron Jones ba Mountain State Universityb Florida Atlantic UniversityPublished online: 03 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Anita Vestal & Nancy Aaron Jones (2004) Peace Building and ConflictResolution in Preschool Children, Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 19:2, 131-142, DOI:10.1080/02568540409595060

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Journal of Research in C hil dhood Education

2001. Vol. 19. No. 2

Peace Building and Conflict Resolution inPreschool Children

Anita VestalMountain State Universi ty

Nancy Aaron JonesFlorida At/antic University

Co pyri ght 2004 by the Assoc iation forChildhood Educ ation Intern ational

1125 6- 85 43104

Abstract. This study was designed to examine whether teacher training facili­tates greater conflict resolution strategies and whether confl ict resolution train­ing leads to prosocial solutions by preschoolers who are at risk for conflict andviolence in their environments. Head Start teachers were trained in a 40-hourcollege-level cours e. Teachers were instructed in the theory of conflict, conflictmanagement, and socio-emotional development in addition to following a prob­lem-solving curriculum with their preschool students. Sixty-four children wereassessed at 4 and 5 years of age. Results showed that preschoolers of trainedteachers had more ski lls in generating solutions to in terpersonal problems. Fur­thermore, children oftrained teachers relied on more relevant solutions and fewerforceful, and thus more prosocial, solutions to solve interpersonal problems. Th esefindings will be discussed in a framework for teach ing conflict resolution andsocial-emotional sk ills to preschool children.

Children learn early in life how to negoti­ate with one another. Although conflictresolution programs are finding acceptancein grade schools, most programs in earlycare and education have not yet integratedpeace-building strategies into their pre­school setting (Durlak & Wells, 1997;Henrich, Brown, & Aber, 1999; Weissberg& Bell , 1997). While a growing body of lit­erature on social and emotional learningpoints to the advantage of early exposure,empirical assessments of conflict resolution

Acknowledgments:Wewish to thank the teachers and children whoparticipated in this project, as well as the Di­rector of Children's Services for Palm BeachCounty, Carmen Nicholas, Ph.D. We also wouldlike to thank Sean Byrne, Ph.D., and MarciaSweedler, Ph.D., and the Conflict Analysis andResolution Department at Nova SoutheasternUniversity for their many contributions to thestudy. The study was supported by a grant fromthe Administration for Children and Families,DHHS.

during preschool education are lacking.Moreover, assessments of children who aremost at risk for experi encing greater con­flict-ridden and violent environments arenecessary because these environments havebeen shown to produce more dysfunctionalsocial skills (Durl ak & Wells, 1997; Henrichet al., 1999). One recent study demon­strated that preschool children of middle­income families benefited from conflict reso­lution training (Stevahn, Johnson, Johnson,Oberle, & Wahl, 2000). Thus, a study docu­menting the effectiveness of teaching con­flict resolution skills to preschoolers in low­income and conflict-ridden environments isneeded.

Conflict naturally occurs in human in­teraction (Simmel, 1950 ) and, if managedproperly, can be a very constructive avenuefor needed change (Coser, 1964). Unfortu­nately, conflict often causes emotional up­set and challenges the communication ca­pacity of most adults (Katz, 1985 ). Adultsand children need to have a set of strate-

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gies that will enable them to manage situ­ations and achieve their goals while help­ing others to achieve their goals as well.Being skilled in social problem solving pro­vides children with a sense of mastery thatis needed to cope with stressful life events.Moreover, researchers have linked impairedproblem-solving in preschool children witha lack of social skills that undermines peercompetence (Rudolph & Heller, 1997). Inaddition, possessing skills for solving prob­lems and resolving conflict reduces the riskof adjustment difficulties in children, evenchildren from low-income and troubledfamilies (Goodman, Gravitt, & Kaslow,1995).

Historically, theories and research havesuggested (Buckley, 2000; Nicholls, 1978 ;Selman, 1980, 1981) that preschoolerswould not be able to take the perspective ofanother within a conflict in order to cometo a mutually satisfying outcome. Morerecent empirical investigations have chal­lenged this view (Johnson & Johnson, 1996;Stevahn et al., 2000 ), however, arguing thatyoung children can learn the foundationalskills for solving conflicts. Such instruc­tion is particularly important for HeadStart families, because these families arelikely to experience more conflict. A betterunderstanding of the risks and protectivefactors affecting Head Start children is es­sential, considering that young childrengrowing up in poverty are exposed to dra­matic increases in the frequency, intensity,and severity of community and family vio­lence (Durl ak & Wells , 1997; MetropolitanArea Child Study Research Group, 2002 ).Often, their impoverished neighborhoodsare the scenes of violence and crime, lead­ing to a recursive negative cycle of socialinteraction (Katz & McClellan, 1997) . HeadStart teachers are working with childrenfrom the poorest families in America, whosehomes are located in unsafe and crime-rid­den neighborhoods (Prothrow-Stith, Wilson,& Weissman, 1991; Raden, 1998; Zigler &Styfco, 1994) . The importance of examiningthe effects of conflict resolution training forHead Start students and the teacher's rolein benefiting students is essential, because

learning to deal with conflict promotes moresocially competent behaviors.

Exposure to Violence in ChildrenResearchers who have studied violence andits effects on children consistently have re­ported that the cycle of violence can becomeperpetual in areas affected by higher lev­els of community violence (Byrne, 1997;Emde, 1993; Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny,& Pardo, 1998 ). It is clear that in violentcommunities, children and their parentsbegin to accept, and expect , violence (Cairns,1996 ). When they are continually exposedto aggression and violence, whether in theneighborhood, at school , in the home, or ontelevision, children begin to model it(Huesmann, 1986; Prothrow-Stith et al.,1991 ). When a child feels victimized by hisor her environment or feels that the envi­ronment instigates aggression, the child islikely to act out aggressively. Exposure toviolence increases the risk that children willengage in future violence and other antiso­cial acts (Cairns, 1996).

Children are more vulnerable to the ef­fects of violent environments when it occursat an early age . Osofsky and her colleagues(Osofsky, Wewers, Hann, & Fick, 1993)studied distress symptoms that were asso­ciated with exposure to violence. Theyfound that exposed children had greaterdifficulty concentrating in school, memoryimpairments, anxious attachments withtheir parents, aggressive play patterns,uncaring behaviors, and self-imposed limi­tations in their activities , due to fear ofvio­lence. These children demonstrated anti­social behaviors as early as the toddler andpreschool years (Za h n -Waxler, Cole ,Richardson, & Friedman, 1994). In orderto break the cycle of violence, new ways ofhandling anger and resolving conflict mustbe introduced early. School age may be toolate to introduce conflict resolution skills,especially for children who are exposed toviolent environments.

Prosocial skills need to be taught to thevery youngest children (Coles, 1997 ). Oneof the critical challenges of educators andcommunities must be to develop emotional

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and social competence in our children. TheAmerican Psychological Association (APA)has issued several reports that outline rem­edies to this dilemma; one ofthe most criti­cal of these remedies is covered in thisstudy-implementing early childhood inter­ventions that are directed toward child careproviders (among others) to build the criti­cal foundation of attitudes, knowledge, andbehavior to prevent violence (APA, 1993,1997). Moreover, Eisenberg (1992) pointsout that past research clearly demonstratedthat school-based intervention can enhanceprosocial responding (Greenberg, Kusche,& Mihalic, 1998) and cooperation, and thatpreschoolers can learn interpersonal prob­lem-solving skills (Shure, 1996; Spivack &Shure, 1974; Youngstrom et aI., 2000 ). Re­search studies are now needed to identifythe elements that are effective within thesituational conditions and that are effectivefor at-risk students so that programs canbe implemented expeditiously (Eisenberg,1992; Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg,2004).

This project was designed to assess theimpact of teacher training on conflict reso­lution, peace education, and child-directedproblem-solving methods on the classroominteractions in Head Start centers. Theteacher training and the subsequent im­pact on children's conflict resolution prac­tices in the Head Start center were exam­ined to determine whether training partici­pating teachers to adjust their attitudesand behavior can affect the conflict resolu­tion strategies used by the children theyteach. This project examined whether con­flict resolution skills can be effectively in­troduced to preschool children through ateacher training model that focuses on in­structing teachers on how to resolve con­flict and promote problem solving by youngchildren. In other terms: Can intensiveteacher training and curriculum changesaffect the preschoolers the teachers are in­structing? Specifically, the present studywas designed to determine whether thechildren in the trained teachers' classrooms1)exhibit more alternatives to conflict situ­ations and 2) report more relevant and less

PEACE BUILDING IN PRESCHOOL

forceful solutions (i.e., more prosocial so­lutions) to conflict situations, compared tochildren in classrooms of non-trainedteachers.

MethodParticipantsSixty-four children from 11 classrooms inHead Start centers participated. Thirty­seven children were randomly selected fromstudents in the classrooms of six trainedteachers and 27 were matched control chil­dren from the classrooms of five untrainedteachers. Gender was equally distributedbetween groups. Parental consent was re­quired for child participation. All childrenwere from lower-income backgrounds andwere homogeneous in academic skills. Allchildren were between 3 to 5 years of ageand were racially similar to the entire popu­lation of Head Start program children inthis community.

Six teachers participated in the trainingand five participated in the control condi­tion. One additional teacher volunteeredfor the control condition but did not obtainsufficient parental consent forms . Althoughchildren were assigned randomly to groups,the teachers volunteered for either thetraining or the control condition. While allteachers were offered the training, the self­selection for the training resulted in aquasi-experimental design. However,teachers who participated in the experimen­tal and control groups were matched on age,education, race, and number of years teach­ing in a Head Start center (Table 1). All ofthe teachers were female.

Independent Variable . This study usedpre-post measures for the teacher interven­tion, with experimental-control group de­sign. For the children, only posttest mea­sures were obtained, because earlier stud­ies have demonstrated that children havelittle to no experience with conflict resolu­tion training during the preschool period(Stevahn et al., 2000). The independentvariable for this study was the absence orpresence ofthe teacher training experienceand the teacher-initiated conflict resolutioncurriculum (Shure, 1992) integrated into

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the classroom.In the experimental condition, the teach­

ers were exposed to a 40-hour course, weregiven instructional materials for teachingconflict resolution in their classrooms, andreceived college cre dit for their training.The teachers in the control group weregiven the instructional materials and theopportunity to be trained after the experi­ment was completed, but they did not par­ticipate in the college course. Due to thelack of random assignment of the teachersin the control condition, only children wereassessed using quantitative methods. Anexperimental-control group design also wasuse d for the children with only post-train­ing assessments.

Dependent Variable. The primary depen­d en t variable for this study was thechildren's responses on the Preschool Inter­personal P r oblem -Solvin g test (PIPS)(Sh ur e, 1990). The PIPS is designed tomeasur e the child's ability to solve real-lifeinterpersonal problems, using a picture­story technique. The PIPS measures three

dimensions pertinent to this study. Thefirst measure assesses relevant solutionsdesigned to determine the total number ofsolutions given by the child that are rel­evant to the problems presented. The sec­ond dimension assesses the relevancy ra­tio, which compares the total number ofre levant solutions to the total number ofsolutions, both relevant and irrelevant. Thethird dimension assesses the force ratio,used only in the peer problems, which as­sessed the total number offorceful solutionscompared to the total number of relevantsolutions, both forceful and non-forceful.

The PIPS test was used, as it measuresproblem-solving gains and childhood socialcompetence. The PIPS test was designedto accompany the I Can Pr oblem Solve(ICPS) program, which constituted the con­flict resolution curriculum used by theteachers in their classrooms to train chil­dren (Shure, 1990). The validity ofthe PIPStest as a discriminator of overt behaviorsthrough the preschool and elementarysch ool period has been confirmed by many

Table 1Demographic Characteristics for Teachers and Children in Experimental and Control Groups

Measures Experimental ControlTeachersAge (years) 38.00 (12.00) 43.60 ( 7.54)

Range of scores 21-54 25-51

Education (years) 12.83 ( 0.75) 13.20 ( 1.09)Range of scores 12-14 12-15

Number ofYears Teaching 8.73 (10.41) 13.40 ( 8.47)Range of scores 2-25 3-22

Race (%)

Black 66.7% 80.0%Hispanic 16.7% 00.0%Caucasian 16.7% 20.0%

ChildrenAge (years) 4.94 ( 0.58) 4.86 ( 0.54)Gender (%female) 53.6% 46.4%

Race (%)Black 73.0% 74.1%Hispanic 21.6% 11.1%Caucasian 5.4% 14.8%

Note : Scores represent mean values , and standard deviations are in parentheses.

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research studies in both low and middleSES levels (Barglow, Contreras, Kavesh, &Vaughn, 1998; Shure, 1992; Turner &Boulter, 1981; Youngstrom et al. , 2000). Forthis study, the PIPS test was found to haveintercoder reliability of .96 to .97, similarto previous reliability scores reported byShure (1990) .

Experimental teachers were trained andexposed to a pre- and post-test interviewabout conflict resolution skills. Detailedaccounts of the changes in qualitative ver­bal responses of the teachers are reportedin detail in Vestal (2001); however, compari­son of pre- and posttest ICPS dialogue ver­sus non-ICPS dialogue was used as a de­pendent variable to validate the utility ofthe training for the teachers, as their dia­logue would then be expected to influencethe children's responses.

ProceduresTeacher Training . In previous studies,

kindergarten children have been trained by

PEACE BUILDING IN PRESCHOOL

researchers on conflict resolution skills,resulting in a type of person-centered train­ing (Stevahn et al. , 2000). In order to par­allel a more naturalistic environment,teachers were extensively trained and giveninstructional materials to present to theirpreschool classroom, resulting in an envi­ronment-centered training (Cook,Campbell, & Cook, 1979). Incorporatingtheprogram into the teacher training sessionsand into the child's educational curriculumwas expected to be a more effective methodfor retaining the program effects acrosstime (Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1991; Johnson,1979).

The method used to train teachers waspilot tested with 50 Head Start staffmem­bers and 24 Head Start teachers. Themethod then was refined to establish thetraining method and curriculum employedin the present study. Details ofthe researchmethod used in the current study are ex­plained below, and details of the classroomcurriculum can be found in Table 2.

Table 2Topics Presented in Teacher Training Course

Topic Issues Presented

Conflict Understand conflict as a natural phenomenon, explore personal reaction toconflict situations, and expand knowledge related to conflict and violence.

Conflict Resolution Assess personal style of conflict management, learn about various methodsand techniques for resolving conflicts for interaction with adults and chil­dren.

Diversity Discuss the importance of culture, perception, experience, and personal biasin understanding the viewpoint of others.

Emotional & Review developmental trajectory of emotional responses in infants and youngSocial Development children. Relate development of social and emotional responses to the pre­

school-age child and review activities to teach emotions with preschoolers.

Violence Prevention Present and discuss research on episodes of school violence during the lastfew years . Explore why school violence is occurring at alarming rates andinvestigate programs for reducing it over the short, medium, and long terms.

Bullying &Victimization

Examine the research on bullies and bullying behaviors. Discuss the currenttrends toward recognizing and reducing this behavior as a school-wide ef­fort. Present the role of the victim. Explain the research indicating thatvictims are often re-victimized and discuss possible causes and cures for thistrend.

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Teachers were interviewed for both thepre- and posttest during their breaks at theHead Start Center in which they worked.Each interview took about 40 minutes andwas tape-recorded for later analysis. To de­termine their pretest conflict resolutionstrategies, teachers were interviewed ap­proximately one to two weeks before thetraining course began. Those in the experi­mental group then were exposed to a seven­week, 13-session college-level course. Top­ics presented included instruction and theo­ries on conflict, peace education, conflictresolution, and emotional and social devel­opment (Table 2). Teachers participated inlectures, role plays, discussions, and pre­sentations. The textbook selected, I CanProblem Solve ([CPS) , developed by Shure(1992) for the curriculum, presents a prob­lem-solving approach specifically designedfor preschool children. Experimental teach­ers were instructed on the use ofthe ICPScurriculum and implemented the curricu­lum during a two-month period in theirclassrooms. The posttest interview wasconducted between three and five weeksafter the course ended.

The teachers' interviews were assessedfrom pre- to post-training for ICPS dialogueand non-ICPS dialogue. ICPS dialogue in­cluded statements asking about feelings,inquiring about the problem, asking aboutsolutions, and asking about commitment

and consequences. Non-ICPS dialogue in­cluded statements about teacher-directedinterventions , prevention of conflictthrough rules, and alterations ofthe child'senvironment (see Table 3).

Assessments ofPreschoolers' Conflict Pat­terns. The ICPS curriculum presented tothe children is developmentally appropri­ate for preschool- and elementary school­age children and is designed to teach a prob­lem-solving vocabulary and problem-solv­ing skills. Within 59 lessons, teachers in­struct children in a problem-solving vocabu­lary; then, the children are exposed to al­ternative solutions, consequences, and so­lution-consequence pairs. The lessons aredesigned to help children recognize what aproblem is , teach ways to generate manysolutions, model how to think sequentially,and encourage actual consequential think­ing. The final section gives children prac­tice in linking a solution with possible con­sequences in a one-to-one situation.

The principal dependent variable for thisstudy was the children's responses on thePIPS test (Sh ur e, 1990). Before testingbegan, children's knowledge of conflict andconflict resolution strategies was absent,which mirrored the population for this com­munity. Children in the experimental andcontrol groups were tested individually onemonth after the teachers finished theirclassroom and curriculum instruction.

Measure

ICPS DialogueNon-ICPS Dialogue

Difference Score"

Table 3Teacher Assessments

Pre

2.33 (2.66 )11.17 (3.06)

ICPS dialogue

5.83 (4.17)

Post

8.17 (3.81)**4.50 (4.04 )*

Non-ICPS dialogue

-6.67 (6.43)**

Note: Scores represent mean values and standard deviations are in parentheses."Difference scores represents the change from pre- to post-training; higher scores indicate moreICPS dialogue compared to non-ICPS dialogue during post-training compared to pre training.Number of respondents in each group =6.* p < .05, ** p < .01.

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Children in the control group were testedin the same time period. They were testedat the Head Start center they attended dur­ing the school day by a researcher trainedin using the PIPS test. At least seven pic­ture-story pairs were given to each child.The testing stopped when children missedthree consecutive responses. All childrenin this study had between seven to 10 sto­ries presented. Summary scores were com­puted for the three dimensions, includingrelevant solutions, relevancy ratio, andforce ratio for each child in the experimen­tal and control groups (described above).

ResultsTeacher TrainingQuantitative analyses confirmed the us e­fulness of the teacher training for alteringteacher perceptions and practices in rela­tion to conflict and conflict resolution strat­egies. In this study, paired t tests were con­ducted to determine whether teachers whowere exposed to the conflict resolutiontraining changed in their dialogue aboutconflict from pre- to post-training sessions.Comparisons between solutions to conflictsuggested before training versus solutionssuggested after training showed that teach­ers used more ICPS dialogue after, t (5 ) =3.42 , p < .05, and decreased in their non­!CPS dialogue, t (5 ) =2.6, p < .05 (Table 3).Apaired t test on the difference score, com­paring pre- to post-ICPS versus pre- to post­non-I CPS dialogue, also showed signifi­cance t(5 ) = 4.0,p < .05, suggesting that theuse of ICPS dialogue increased from pre­test to posttest for all teachers who partici­pated in the training.

Child AssessmentsAnalysis of variance (ANOVA) was used todetermine whether differences existed be­tween the experimental and control groupchildren in their problem-solving strategieson the PIPS test. Results showed that chil­dren whose teachers were trained and ex­posed them to the conflict resolution cur­riculum had a higher number of relevantsolutions, suggesting they were able tothink of more ways to solve the interper-

PEACE BUILDING IN PRESCHOOL

sonal conflicts than did the children whoseteachers were not trained and who were notexposed to the conflict resolution curricu­lum, F(1,62 ) = 4.08, p < .05.

A multivariate ANOVA compared theexperimental and control groups on boththe relevancy ratio and the force ratio. Re­sults yielded a significant interaction effect ,Wilks' A=.82, F(1 ,62) = 13.20, p < .05, withthe 112 =.17, suggesting that children in theconflict resolution intervention demon­strated lower force ratio scores and higherrelevancy ratio scores than children in thecontrol group (Figu re 1).

Subsequent univariate ANOVAs on thechildren's responses to the PIPS test wereconducted. The analyses showed significantgroups differences for both relevancy ratio,F(1 ,62) =5.12,p < .05, and force ratio scores,F(1,62 ) = 8.42, p < .05, suggesting that pre­school-age children can be taught to thinkof more relevant solutions to conflict andalternatives to force when confronted withan interpersonal conflict.

DiscussionThis investigation focused on teaching pre­school children about resolving conflicts,endeavoring t o determine whether pre­school children who are already exposed toviolence in their environment have the ca­pacity to learn and use conflict resolutionstrategies. While not directly instructingthe preschoolers, it was expected that en­vironment-based changes, via the teacherinstruction and the curriculum, would posi­tively affect the preschoolers' conflict reso­lution skills. During recent years, there hasbeen a rise in the use and evaluation of vio­lence prevention models in schools (Leff,Power, Manz, Costigan, & Nabors, 2001 ;Wood, 1999 ). However, empirical studiesof conflict resolution in preschool are stilllacking. Establishing research-based evi­dence of the significance of conflict resolu­tion programs in early education has beenelusive, perhaps due, in part, to a lack ofassessments appropriate for the preschoolpopulations or due to the theory that chil­dren lack the intellectual capacities forproblem-solving behavior (Selman, 1980,

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1981). This study did demonstrate signifi­cant gains in preschoolers' ability to resolveinterpersonal problems when children wereexposed to a conflict resolution curriculumby a teacher trained in socio-emotionalskills, conflict resolution skills, and peaceeducation. Specifically, the children wereable to report more solutions to a conflictsituation, report more relevant comparedto irrelevant solutions and, most important,convey fewer forceful (and therefore moreprosocial) solutions to conflict situations.This study supports other theories and evi­dence that young children can learn to re­solve their conflicts (Barglow et al., 1998;Shure, 1992; Turner & Boulter, 1981;Youngstrom et al., 2000).

Although preschoolers may lack the

higher level of cognitive processing abilitynecessary to take the perspective of another,and thereby come to a mutually satisfyingresolution to conflict, early learning theo­ries (Bandura, 1977; Vygotsky, 1987) havesuggested that children can (and strive to)model behaviors of more competent peersand adults. Within this study, the teachersmodeled emotionally competent behaviorsto children in the experimental group, andthese children used these strategies to re­solve conflicts when interviewed by anotheradult. These results suggest that an envi­ronmental change and a curriculum de­signed to teach adaptive problem-solvingprinciples can effectively teach Head Startchildren to use and adopt conflict resolu­tion strategies into their understanding of

Figure 1Comparison Between Children in the Experimental and Control Groups on

Their Relevant and Forceful Solutions to Conflict Situations

0.80• Experimental

0.70

0.60

0.50

0.40

0.30

0.20

0.10

0.00Relevancy Force

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social interactions. Therefore, althoughyoung children may be limited by their cog­nitive maturation, theorists and practitio­ners should recognize that understandingof conflict and its resolution can occur atdifferent levels of processing. Preschoolchildren are capable of evaluating the con­sequences of their choices if taught foun­dational skills (Buckley, 2000). Under­standing conflict resolution as a sociallycompetent behavior, with the buildingblocks based on knowledge of emotions anddiversity, may help young children modeland adopt good strategies for dealing withconflict in their environment. Ultimately,healthy, socially competent developmentrequires knowledge of negotiation and con­flict resolution abilities.

The results of this study also indicatethat trained children were better able tocome up with non-forceful solutions to apeer conflict than were the children whowere not in the trained group. It is essen­tial that children learn prosocial methodsfor resolving conflict and dealing with hos­tile emotions as early in life as possible(Brenner & Salovey, 1997; Eisenberg, 1992 ;Eisenberg, Fabes, & Losoya, 1997;Prothrow-Stith et al., 1991 ). Researchersrecognize the need to diminish the modelsof aggression in a child's environment andto break the cycle of violence that leads chil­dren to model the aggressive approachesthey may observe early in life (Byrne, 1997;Emde, 1993 ; Garbarino et al., 1998;Huesmann, 1986). A key finding was thattrained children were able to expand uponproblem-solving strategies that sign ifi­cantly reduced the ratio offorceful solutionsto interpersonal problems. Conflict resolu­tion training at an early age can help themexpand the realm of prosocial responses tochoose from when confronted with interper­sonal conflicts (Spivack & Shure, 1974).The ICPS curriculum used in this studycontains a set of skills consistent with iden­tified components of peace education mod­els (Bey & Turner, 1996; Bodine &Crawford, 1997; Lantieri & Patti, 1996;Rosandic, 2000). This study confirms thesuitability of an interpersonal cognitive

PEACE BUILDING IN PRESCHOOL

problem-solving model like ICPS for teach­ing conflict resolution to Head Start andother preschool children between the agesof 3 and 6 (Shure, 1992, 1996).

As further evidence of the importance forconflict resolution training, the untrainedchildren in the present study and those be­fore training in the Stevahn et al. (2000)study used more negative types ofnegotia­tion skills (e.g., forcing , withdrawing) as themajor strategies for managing conflict.These negative strategies lead to more con­flict and violence. Moreover, a more com­prehensive study of violence (Metropolit anArea Child Study Research Group, 2002)demonstrated that violent behaviors areevident in kindergartners, that they tendto persist and intensify, and that the vio­lent behaviors are resistant to change byearly school age . Therefore, violence pre­vention and intervention should begin assoon as possible.

The choice of a Head Start program asthe research site for this study affordedmany benefits and opportunities that hadnot been examined previously. First, teach­ers (and the Head Start staff who partici­pated in the pilot study) were motivated tolearn methods for resolving conflicts thatcould be taught to the children. Even thecontrol group agreed to participate in thestudy (instead oftaking the college course,they were merely given the ICPS materi­als after the completion of the study). Sec­ond, and on a related note, the participat­ing Head Start centers are located in areaswhere children and families are most at riskfor experiencing conflict-ridden and violentenvironments. Studies within these envi­ronments are necessary because teachers,children, and families are at greater riskfor exposure to violent and aggressive be­haviors in their daily encounters (Raden,1998; Zigler & Styfco, 1994). Moreover,prior research has established that violentand aggressive environments generatemore dysfunctional social skills (Durlak &Wells, 1997; Henrich et al., 1999). Com­bining the factors of an at-risk environmentwith the positive motivation of the teach­ers to adopt a conflict resolution program

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in the classroom offered an important op­portunity to propose and test the theorythat teachers should experience a transfor­mation in their own attitudes and beliefsabout conflict in order to effectively teachthe skills of conflict resolution to children.

An important premise in peace educationis that self-transformation must occur forlasting empowerment and change to takehold (Freire, 1993; Lederach, 1997 ;Woolpert, Slayton, & Schwerin, 1998).Building upon the precept of self-transfor­mation, findings demonstrated that teachertransformation in their knowledge, atti­tudes, and behavior can effect changes inthe classroom environment and their teach­ing methods. The presumed transforma­tion is based specifically on teachers' asso­ciations to conflict resolution, violence pre­vention, and peace education. This effectwas demonstrated at least in part by thechange in teacher dialogue; that is, aftertraining, teachers used more dialogue thatpromoted healthy conflict resolution strat­egies than before the training. Moreover,the researchers attempted to improveteachers' efficiency by imparting the ideathat curriculum changes will affect the fu­ture abilities ofthe children in the trainedteachers' classrooms. This effect promotedchanges in the environment and teachingmethods, resulting in a total-student bodyapproach to experiencing conflict resolutionstrategies.

Despite the strong evidence thatpreschoolers were able to demonstrate con­flict resolution abilities learned from theclassroom, this study was unable to assessthe children's interactive behaviors withintheir classrooms or their home environ­ments. Examining these preschoolers'naturalistic responses to conflict after thetraining would have provided additionalevidence of their internalization of theprosocial negotiation strategies; however,recent research has demonstrated thatpreschoolers learn and subsequently inter­nalize the negotiation strategies when ex­posed to conflict resolution training(Stevahn et al., 2000).

The two key findings in this study of

Head Start teachers and 4- to 5-year-oldchildren are that: 1) preschool childrenfrom at-risk neighborhoods can be taughtto think of more ways (particularly, moreprosocial ways) to resolve interpersonal con­flicts than their untrained peers; and 2)when taught by motivated teachers whohave undergone transformative training inconflict resolution strategies, preschoolerscan acquire significant problem-solvingskills. Afuture study should assess whetherthese changes in curriculum and childhoodcognitive strategies have a lasting effect onchildren's interactive behaviors across time.

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