Continuing Teacher Training in Conflict Mediation: A Socio-Educational Strategy for the Current School

We are aware of the challenges affecting the present society, social and existential issues that follow. Being a teacher requires a permanent training in line with the latest societal developments and the evolution of knowledge. Both School and the teacher are expected to contribute to the student’s integral education. The main objective of the present study was to analyze the contribution of continuing teacher training in conflict mediation and evaluate the performance of the mediating strategies in responding to the School’s current socio-educational challenges. We have conducted a qualitative study, as there is still a need for significant theoretical scientific contributions to this subject. We gathered data through semi-structured interviews. Participants include nine teachers, aged between 33 years and 62 years, of both sexes, working as teachers in schools or groups of schools in the north of Portugal. The data analysis was done based on an analysis of content technique, according to the interview’s codification upon the register units where we have determined categories and subcategories. The results show that continuing formation in conflict mediation is essential for upgrading and knowledge innovations, as well as for the development of new strategies leading to better professional practice. This training in mediation promotes the acquirement of skills required to deal with nowadays School’s socio-educational challenges more easily. Furthermore, we found that there is a perfect association between socio-educational abilities developed in mediation and the ones that help students through their mandatory schooling journey.