Peace Maintenance System: Effects on elementary school teachers\u27 and students\u27 communication, affirmation, cooperation, and conflict resolution interactions

The present study sought to determine the effects of the Peace Maintenance System (PMS) on teacher and student communication, affirmation, cooperation, and conflict resolution interactions prior to and after training and implementation, as measured by the Peace Maintenance Observational Category Scale (PMOCS), the guided teacher dialogue journals, and the guided student reflective journals. The basic PMS objectives were to: view conflict as a way of growing through interactions, understand that problem solving is the best way to solve a conflict, work cooperatively in order to seek viable solutions to conflict, and understand and respect another\u27s perspective in a conflict situation. Treatment consisted of 16 activity lessons implemented over a 4-week period and equally divided into four distinct domains: communication, affirmation, cooperation, and conflict resolution. Data for this study were collected from 71 students from three third-grade elementary public school classes and their respective female teachers (n = 3) in a culturally diverse setting within Westchester County, New York. Triangulation of data was utilized. The data collected from the results of the PMOCS were statistically analyzed for interrater reliability by using an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and teacher-student interactions within each domain by utilizing t-test procedures. A two-way ANOVA of the PMOCS yielded a summary result for each PMS domain. The results of the frequencies of teacher and student interactions indicated a significant average gain of: 68.67 within the communication domain, 70.89 within the affirmation domain, 33.77 within the cooperation domain, and 61.44 within the conflict resolution of the PMOCS. Content analyses of the reflective journals also produced significant results for each of the four domains. In sum, the data and content analyses demonstrated that the majority of the teachers and students understood the goals of each PMS domain, substantiating the findings of the significance of the interactions studied in this investigation. The findings of this study have implications for curriculum development and instructional methodologies for elementary teachers and students for the successful implementation of a violence prevention and conflict resolution program in an urban setting where teachers and students come from different cultures, ethnic groups, and linguistic backgrounds