Konflikthantering under utbildning : - En kvantitativ undersökning av erfarenheter från lärarutbildningen och synen på kommande yrkesutövning med särskilt fokus på samhällskunskapslärare

The amount of conflict in the school environment is rising and with it the need for constructive conflict management. A proposal to extend the possibilities and powers that teachers should possess during conflicts have recently been drafted by the Swedish educational minister. However, this does not ensure proper management of a conflict. As a teacher, you need to have theoretical and practical knowledge if you wish to turn a conflict into a constructive learning opportunity. Therefore, this paper aims to explore teacher students’ perspectives and attitudes towards conflict and conflict management. The research questions have been 1. To what extent have teacher students gathered theoretical and practical knowledge from their education? 2. What is the view of student teachers on conflicts and conflict management in their future careers and teaching? 3. Are there differences between future social science teachers and other subject teachers regarding the view on conflict and conflict management? A digital survey was formulated and sent to three different groups on Facebook that had teacher students as members. Answers from 163 teacher students were collected and analysed using SPSS. The results showed that almost half of the students had received little to no theoretical knowledge and a vast majority had received little to no practical knowledge regarding conflict management. Conflict and conflict management between two students was envisioned to be the most common type by the teacher students in their future career. Differences were found between social science and other subjects – social science as a subject was most convinced of the possibilities and opportunities that constructive conflict management could generate. This differed from mathematics where a majority thought that conflicts should be avoided during teaching