Contributions to training in social education: solving conflicts in dating and empathy

The Social Educator works with very diverse populations for the promotion of well-being and autonomy. In this sense, it is important to understand to what extent higher education students in this area present perceptions regarding the use of conflict resolution strategies (abusive and not abusive in dating) and empathy that can be mobilized in the future exercise of the profession. Hence, the study aims to know the relation between the perceptions of conflict resolution and empathy strategies; and to what extent the influence of sociodemographic variables (gender and age) and degree year. In this way, we seek to foresee how training can contribute to enhance the use of positive strategies for conflict resolution and the improvement of empathic perceptions. A total of 242 students from two Polytechnic Higher Education Institutions participated. This is a non-experimental and cross-sectional study. The instruments used were the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationships Inventory – CADRI - developed by Wolfe, Scott, Reitzel-Jaffe, Wekerle, Grasley e Straatman (2001), validated for the Portuguese population by Saavedra, Machado, Martins, e Vieira (2011) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI, Davis, 1980, 1983), in the Portuguese version (Limpo, Alves, & Castro, 2010). In the results, we highlight in the CADRI, statistically significant differences; i) by gender, in the abusive strategies of conflict resolution (own behavior - perceptions of sexual violence and behavior of the other - perceptions of physical violence), and non-abusive conflict resolution strategies (behavior of the other); ii) by age (age group) in abusive conflict resolution strategies, behavior of the other-perceptions of physical violence. In IRI, there were statistically significant differences in the subscale of the empathic perspective; in the global scale of empathy (according to gender and degree year), as well as in the empathic concern subscale (according to the degree year). Positive and significant correlations are also found in some of the conflict resolution strategies identified from the CADRI and one of the IRI subscales and dimension, as well as in the global scale. Based on the results, strategies that could be developed in the context of training were thought, with a view to enhancing improvements with impact on the personal and social development of trainees.