A Bibliometric Review of Research on School-based Conflicts and Conflict-resolution

Author(s):

Ilse Hakvoort(presenting / submitting)Jonas Lindahl(presenting)Agneta Lundström

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

05. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

05 SES 07,

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

17:15-18:45

Room:

W2.11

Chair:

Ilse Hakvoort

Contribution

In the presented study, the intellectual base (i.e., the highly cited literature; Persson, 1994) that has influenced research in the field of school-related conflict and conflict resolution is in focus. Bibliometric methods were used to examine international literature on research on school-related conflicts and conflict-resolution, published between 1996 and 2015.

Internationally scholars in the field of conflict and conflict resolution, in general and in schools in particular, have made clear that the concepts of conflict and conflict resolution are complex and multifaceted (Deutsch, 2006; Johnson & Johnson, 1996; Bickmore, 2002). In addition, scholars from different disciplines (for example sociology, psychology, education, global studies) have been attracted to study their own specific research questions based on the conceptual frameworks of their discipline. The terminology in this field reflects the diverse conceptual frameworks, angles and interests. For example terms like conflict resolution, conflict management, classroom management, conflict transformation, and conflict education can be found.

Previously, studies have been conducted in the field of school-related conflict and conflict resolution including overviews with selected literature (Coleman, Deutsch & Marcus, 2014), studies examining parts of the field by describing different scientific trends (Deutsch, 1949, 1973, 1985; Bickmore, 2002, 2004, 2010), and meta-analysis on the use and effectiveness of conflict resolution education programs (Johnson & Johnson, 1996). As far as we know little attention has been paid to intellectual base of this field of study, i.e., the literature that can be viewed as the foundation of the knowledge production in school-related conflict and conflict resolution. Moreover, there is no coherent view of what makes a particular piece of work part of this field, and how it is related to other cited authors.

In the present study we seek to address these gaps by mapping out the structure of the cited literature (i.e., the dominating topics, scholars, methods and theories) in the scattered and fragmented field of school-related conflict and conflict resolution. This study provides an empirical overview that links research from different disciplines and approaches.

In the study, bibliometric methods are used to explore the following research questions:

How are the structures of the intellectual base in school-related conflict and conflict resolution research organized?
Who are the most frequently cited authors on school-related conflict and conflict resolution and how are these authors related to each other?
Which topics have dominated the intellectual base in school-related conflict and conflict resolution research between 1996 and 2015 and how are these topics related?
How have the intellectual base changed over time in the field of school-related conflict and conflict resolution regarding influential authors and research topics?
What do patterns over time tells us about actual trends?

Method

Data collection was performed in the interdisciplinary citation database Scopus. Compared with other citation databases (e.g., SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, and A&HCI), Scopus has good coverage of research published in the social sciences (Norris & Oppenheim, 2007). To delineate school-related conflict and conflict resolution research we constructed a boolean lexical query. Two subject experts in the field of school-related conflict and conflict resolution provided search terms. The boolean lexical query consisted of subject related search terms (e.g., restorative practice; conflict resolution) and context related search terms (e.g., classroom; teacher; student). The final query included 12 unique subject related terms and four context related terms. The query was restricted to English language publications in the document types, articles, conference proceedings, letters, notes, and reviews, between 1996 and 2015. With these filters the query retrieved 874 documents. To address the problem of non-relevant documents among the search results two subject experts screened the 874 documents manually. The final dataset consisted of 608 school-related conflict and conflict resolution publications. A longitudinal author co-citation analysis was applied to the data (White & McCain, 1998). Author co-citation analysis is a bibliometric method that is used to examine the intellectual structure of a research field by identifying highly cited authors (i.e., authors whose works have been much used, and as such influencing research in the field of school-related conflict and conflict resolution) and analysing how these authors are associated in terms of subject matter (e.g., research topics, theories and methods; White & McCain, 1998). The goal of author co-citation analysis is to identify the intellectual base of a research field in terms of authors and research topics and to analyse how these authors and topics are related (Eom, 2009). Author co-citation analysis uses a similarity measure called author co-citation strength to examine the intellectual structure of a research field (Eom, 2009). The author co-citation strength consists of the number of times two authors have been cited together in other documents (White & McCain, 1998). The greater the author co-citation strength, the more likely it is that the two authors are related in subject matter (Eom, 2009). We used the unified mapping and clustering technique implemented in VOSviewer to analyse and visualize the results as two-dimensional maps (Waltman, Van Eck, & Noyons, 2010).

Expected Outcomes

The dataset was subdivided into two periods: 1996-2010 and 2011-2015. Cluster analysis and network techniques were used to visualize the data as two maps. We included 197 of the most influential authors in school-related conflict and conflict resolution (106 in period 1, 136 in period 2). We identified 45 authors that occurred in both periods. The top five most cited authors in period 1 were: Johnson, D; Johnson, R; Lewis; Sugai; and Brophy. We define authors that did not appear in period 1, but in period 2, as emerging authors. The top five most cited authors in period 2 were: Reinke; Wubbels; Tschannen-Moran; Herman; and Stormont (White & McCain, 1998). Seven clusters were identified in period 1 (labelled by subject matter): Classroom management: efficacy and learning; Classroom management: students behaviour problems; Knowledge about conflicts and conflict resolution; Community-building: pro-social development, preventive education, and value education; Aggressive/bullying: personality psychology; Classroom management: power in the classroom; and Learning through mediation. Four clusters where identified in period 2: Classroom management: The positive turn; Classroom management: Best practice; Knowledge about conflicts and conflict resolution in school: Peace education and restorative justice; and Theorizing concepts: efficacy, motivation, socialization. The results provide an overview of influential authors in school-related conflict and conflict resolution and how they are intellectually associated; how different areas of research are structurally related to each other; and how these areas have changed. Clusters from period 1 return in period 2. This indicates a relative stability. It is remarkable that only 45 (out of 197) authors re-occur in the second period. This can refer to a relatively high rate of emerging authors. Finally, the findings of this study stimulate reflections on the contribution of experience-based knowledge to the field (e.g., from consultants and practitioners) which are not always reported in scientific articles.

References

Bickmore, K. (2002). Good training is not enough: research on peer mediation program implementation. Social Alternatives, 21(1), 33–38. Bickmore, K. (2004). Discipline for democracy? School districts’ management of conflict and social exclusion. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(1), 75–97. Bickmore, K. (2011). Policies and programming for safer schools: Are “antibullying” approaches impeding education for peacebuilding? Educational Policy, 25(4), 648–687. Deutsch, M. (1949). A theory of cooperation and competition. Human Relations, 2, 129–151. Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict: Constructive and destructive processes. NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press. Deutsch, M. (1985). Distributive justice: a social psychological perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University press Deutsch, M. (2006). Cooperation and Competition. In M. Deutsch & P. Coleman (Eds.) The Handbook of Conflict-resolution: theory and practice (23-42). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Coleman, P. T., Deutsch, M., & Marcus, E. C. (2014, third edition). The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Eom, S. (2009). Author co-citation analysis: Quantitative methods for mapping the intellectual structure of an academic discipline. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Johnson, D.W. & Johnson, R.T. (1996). Conflict resolution and peer mediation programs in elementary and secondary Schools. A review of the research, Review of Educational research, 66(4), 459-506. Norris, & Oppenheim. (2007). Comparing alternatives to the Web of Science for coverage of the social sciences’ literature. Journal of Informetrics, 1(2), 161-169. Persson, O. (1994). The intellectual base and research fronts of Deutsch, 2006JASIS 1986-1990. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45(1), 31-38. Waltman, Van Eck, & Noyons. (2010). A unified approach to mapping and clustering of bibliometric networks. Journal of Informetrics, 4(4), 629-635. White, Howard D., & McCain, Katherine W. (1998). Visualizing a discipline: An author co-citation analysis of information science, 1972-1995. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49(4), 327.

Author Information

Ilse Hakvoort (presenting / submitting)

University of Gothenburg

of Education and Special Education

Gothenburg

Jonas Lindahl (presenting)

Umeå university

Department of Sociology

Umeå

Agneta Lundström

university of umeå

Department of Applied Educational Science