This paper discusses the possibilities of community mediation as a mechanism that promotes urban education, local development and, ultimately, social justice. It starts by asking the following question: how can the mediation of (mostly) individual conflicts generate collective change? In other words, how is it possible to bridge the gap between individual and collective transformation (Bush, 1996)? To be sure, answering this question requires answering a previous one: how do you evaluate the effects of community mediation? Mediation often claims (or aims at) the ability to treat all parts involved in a conflict in equal terms. The social structure, however, and social relationships, are everywhere marked by strong disparities in access to power and knowledge. The possibility of combining together in the same mediation model the principle of the mediator’s impartiality and the principle of organizing a community towards social change and social justice keeps generating difficulties. What is the possible relationship between the mediation of cases and the defence of causes? This paper draws not only on literature review but also on the authors’ experience as managers of a community mediation project in Porto, Portugal. This project is the result of a partnership between the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto and ADILO, a local development agency. This project aims not only at providing mediation services to the community but also, on a more theoretical level, at discussing the possibilities of new forms of social work and social education. In this sense, we are concerned not only with the gap between the individual and the collective, but also with the gap between the local and the global, as addressed by Hamzaoui’s notion of the “territorialization of social work” (2005).

Participant observation of mediation sessions, analysis of mediation records and informal interviews with local community social workers.

We argue that community mediation may more easily bridge the gap between individual and collective transformation if, and when, community mediators are duly recognised by local or national administrative and/or political agencies. In this way, conflict mediation between individuals and regional or national agencies may be approached differently and, eventually, new patterns of relationship may emerge between individuals and agencies which contribute to social change and social justice. On the other hand, the connection between conflict mediation concerning individuals and urban education and social change remains unclear.