Conflicts occur at all levels of an organization and between individuals, departments, offices, and any other division of entities in the organization. Conflicts need not escalate into open argument but will develop because of differences in point of view, differences in information acquired, even personality differences. Some settings are more rigidly controlled and more directed at reducing conflict, and the school setting is one such organization. The proper running of the school requires that conflict be reduced as much as possible, and where conflict is allowed it is under controlled conditions, as in open meetings, the classroom, within departments, and so on. Conflicts develop just the same and have to be addressed by the organization.
Consider some of the conflicts that develop in the school setting. There can be conflicts between the organization itself and the surrounding community, an this is indeed an area of concern in which the organization has to expend a good deal of effort to reduce the chance of such conflict. A school is an organization separate from the surrounding community and yet part of it at the same time. Conflicts develop because the school brings together large numbers of people, most of them young, and many of them not as disciplined as the community might like. A number of types of conflict can develop from this situation. Several times that I can recall there have been complaints about activities after sports events as exuberant students have interfered with traffic or created noise problems. Parties in dormitories can be another source of noise that affects the community. The fact that a large organization exists in the middle of a community creates traffic problems traceable to the organization in any case, and conflict often develops when the school makes plans to expand and so to increase traffic even more.
Schools have a number of ways of addressing these types of conflict, and they ...