ABSTRACT
In recent years, throughout the United States, peer mediation programs have gained the support of school faculty and administrators, as well as educational researchers, as a means of combating school violence (Bey, 1996; Reiss & Roth, 1993; Van Slyck & Stern, 1991). The logic of peer mediation is that students who have trained as mediators can meet with fellow students who have disputes to help them solve their problems, thereby avoiding more serious conflict that could erupt if the disputants were not mediated. This logic suggests that violence in school is alleviated when disputants can air their grievances in the presence of trained mediators who are capable of employing mediation and conflict resolution strategies. Meanwhile, there is another rationale for peer mediation programs that suggests that violence in schools is alleviated not when disputants
are mediated, but when mediators learn conflict resolution skills. In this case, the logic is as follows: when students are trained to mediate disputes in their schools, the training teaches these students, not only how to mediate, but also how to solve their own disputes-in school, in their communities, with their families-throughout their lives. The point in this case is to train as mediators as many students as possible and to therefore inundate society with individuals who possess the skills to resolve conflicts nonviolently (Johnson, Johnson, Dudley, Ward, & Magnuson, 1995). Here it is the training itself, not the mediation process, that leads to decreased incidents of violence. Given these two scenarios, we are led to a crossroad regarding peer mediation programs: who should benefit from peer mediation, the disputants or the mediators? When we evaluate a peer mediation program, should we, as educational researchers, evaluate how effective programs are for the mediators or for the mediated?
