ABSTRACT
Those of us who are researchers, educators, and instructional designers struggle to define “conflict” and “violence” as we design research projects and interventions around these issues. All too often, we impose our social construction of reality onto those we are studying or educating instead of trying to find out, first, how these individuals interpret their own reality. I submit that our definitions of conflict and violence will vary dramatically based on our social location (i.e., gender, race, social class, geographic location, age, and religious affiliation). As Delpit (1995, p. xiv) argued: “We all carry worlds in our heads, and those worlds are decidedly different. We educators set out to teach, but how can we reach the worlds of others when we don’t even know they exist? Indeed, many of us don’t even realize that our own worlds exist only in our heads and in the cultural institutions we have built to support them.” We must begin the process of research and design by looking inward to examine our own standpoints or “worlds.” Then we must engage in qualitative inquiry to better understand the worlds of others from varied social locations; this is essential if we want to improve our understanding of violence and our attempts to reduce it.
