How teachers understand and strategize about emerging conflicts

Abstract

This article concerns what have been variously called mild misbehaviours, minor distractions or emerging conflicts, i.e. situations of mild tension between the teacher and pupils in the classroom. The article responds to calls for further studies on the link between how teachers understand these emerging conflicts and the strategies they suggest to handle them. We carried out two studies on primary school teachers in Sweden, using a qualitatively driven mixed-method design, i.e. the studies were carried out sequentially using different qualitative methods. The first study, the main study, based on individual interviews with 20 teachers, used a phenomenographic approach, capturing these teachers’ different understandings of emerging conflict. The second study, the supplemental study, based on six group interviews with 18 teachers, built on the main study and used a hermeneutic approach, capturing how these teachers link a certain understanding of emerging conflicts to certain themes of suggested strategies. By utilizing this design, we were able to investigate the aforementioned link and build a model of nine different understandings, each linked to one to four strategy themes. Altogether, 22 different strategy themes, together encompassing a multitude of separate strategies, were recognized and linked to the nine different understandings. The results suggest that teachers have a more divergent and nuanced understanding of emerging conflicts, and how to handle them, than earlier studies of this link have reported. The results give valuable insights into developing more accurate quantitative surveys as well as more suitable teacher training programmes.