Conflicts in the school system: Key problems, specifics and development factors

Abstract

The study presents an analysis of the specifics, content, factors of conflict situations at school, where the contemporary Russian teacher is a participant, identifies key conflict risks in the following types of interactions: teacher-student, teacher-teacher, teacher-administration, teacher-parent. The leading method of research is a questionnaire survey of teachers at Moscow schools by sending questionnaires by email. The results of the study were supplemented with materials of a non-formal interview. The greatest intensity of conflict situations is characteristic of teacher and student interactions. The reasons for the conflict are the restriction of the teacher's ability to apply legitimate disciplinary actions, a decrease in the teacher's authority, an insufficient level of relevance of the content of educational material, forms and methods of conducting classes to the level of training of students, their educational needs. Sources of conflict risks in the process of interaction between the teacher and the leadership of the educational organization are dysfunctions of the teacher's work organization, lack of conditions for their professional development, uneven and/or unfair distribution of training and additional workload, redundancy of control, and authoritarian management style. The one-sided nature of the interaction between the family and the school, the lack of effective feedback, the contradiction between the parents' expectations of the quality of education and the actual learning outcomes in the modern school, the commercialization of the educational space largely contribute to the development of conflicts in the process of interaction between the teacher and the parent community.