Headmasters and headmistresses and conflicts
 

Headmasters/mistresses facing organizative conflicts

Documents

Conflict is an inherent element for all organizations. There are of   many kinds; the most worrying ones to the eyes of school leaders are internal conflicts, those that appear in the very heart of a teachers'meeting. Most internal conflicts find their origin in the access to ressources (two teachers wanting the same tutorial class, the distribution of reinforcement hours in the different levels or specialities, timetables…), in the access to posts of responsability (level coordinators, head of department …) but also, in the delimitation of engagements related to work (hours of reduction, hours of administrative duties, going with students to excursions, justifying   absences, etc.).

In the   text Intervención de los directivos en la resolución de conflictos organizativos / Supervision of school-leaders in solving organizational conflicts we analyse different behaviours (avoidance, confrontation and   negotiation) in front of conflicts,   indicating the advantages and disadvantages of each of them. From the theoretical point of view, we can affirm that the best behaviour is negotiation, although we make use of the three of them, combined according to circumstances in each case. There are conflicts in front of which the only option left is to learn how to coexist until an opportunity for improvement appears; there are others that in an initial phase require an attitude of confrontation as an intermediate way, to end in a negotiation.

  In the document   Els directius davant del conflicte/ School-leaders in front of conflicts you will find the results of a research study on the catalan school-leaders perceptions. That study was carried out thanks to the collaboration of 50 primary school headmasters/mistresses.

The presentation El conflicto en el centro escolar. Abordaje y transformación/ Approach and transformation of the school conflict corresponds to the application of the previous material in a training activity for school-leaders.

 

 

 


   
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