A Study On The Handling Style Of Principal In School Conflict

Thomas and Schmidt show that in a survey of middle and high school principals,the conflict management association found that principals spent an average of 20% time in dealing with conflict.They might be a direct participant in the conflict or a third party tring to resolve the conflict.The principals believed that conflict management was ranked in front of decision-making,leadership and communication in the development of management.There was no doubt that the knowledge and ability of dealing with conflict were the basic requirements of management effectiveness.Although in traditional habits,most people think that conflict resolution was based on the causes. A number of studies of modern conflict management pointed out that,the conflict resolution process itself is also very complexity and instability characteristics, thus the choice of conflict management style will directly affect the process and outcome of the conflict. This is also the reason of the study as"conflict management style"the subject.I had worked in Y secondary school of C District,Education Bureau of P District and C school,summer office of M District in Shanghai,and accumulated a lot of cases on the conflict.In September to November 2009,1 conducted a survey involving 180 primary and secondary school principals and 204 teachers of C District,P Dsitrict,M District of Shanghai with conflict management theory.Based on all kinds of factual information, the study together and compared the case studies,interviews at all levels and the empirical data content of a questionnaire,to improve research validity by "mutual authentication".This study was divided into four parts.The first part (Chapter one) clarified the source of the author's writing background,motivation and meaning, established the scope of this research,methods and thesis structure.The second part (Chapter two) started with clarifing the core concepts of the conflict management methods,combing the research in accordance with the process of conflict management,to find out their theoretical support of discovering and analysising issues.The third part(Chapter three)was the core of the paper.Using the survey data,such as case studies,interviews and questionnaires at all levels,the research analized the characteristics of internal conflict management style,problems and causes in different situations (the principal as a party to the conflict or as a third party)by the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis.Final part(Chapter five)put forward suggestions to improve the conflict management mode of school principal.The study found that,on the whole,people-oriented management idea had influenced conflict management in schools,but there were some issue.On the one hand,the conflict management largely led by the president's authority,on the other hand,the school had not yet established conflict management system.Specifically,the principal characteristic in handling schools conflict was in various background factors, some won't conducive to conflict resolution,for example,principals abandoned their handling principle for preserving their face.There won't reasonable head-on collision occurring between teacher and principal.In addition, in order to quickly resolving the conflict between teachers,principals sometimes relied on the experience,and because of not being completely solved,there was the potential possibility of a conflict outbreak. Some factors were conducive to conflict resolution,such as principal positive attitude and some humanity resolution techniques.There were three reasons,these factors directly promoted the principals conflict management behavior,in the impact of the traditional values;the lack of effective power control mechanism;the lack of knowledge and ability.How do we improve the principal conflict management style?The answer to this question was not just theoretical research needs,but also the needs of practice. Specifically,the principal should establish a correct view of the conflict and power;education administrative departments should establish a principal power restriction mechanism;principal comprehensively improve the conflict management and use the conflict management techniques.