Abstract:

Teachers and teacher educators have always been concerned with the ideas of creating successful communication in the classroom with a view to teaching students life skills such as empathy and conflict resolution, for conflict is part and parcel of human life, and every individual should be trained to manage disputed situations. Teachers and teacher educators have always been interested in productive communication out of the classroom with a view to collaborating fruitfully with their colleagues that can be guaranteed if all the participants of communication are able to handle appropriate collaboration and/ or conflict management strategies in a particular conflict situation. “Because conflict is a normal part of everyone's life, conflict resolution, or the ability to resolve conflicts effectively, is a crucial skill for everyone to have” [1]. No doubt, all conflicts cannot necessarily be resolved, but learning how to manage conflicts can decrease the probability of its further escalation [2].

In this paper, a few causes and consequences of conflicts have been viewed and answered the research questions:
(i) Do teachers teaching at various levels encounter conflict in their professional lives?
(ii) What are the specific reasons of conflict among teachers?
(iii) What conflict management style is adopted by teachers to overcome conflict?

For this study data were collected in two phases. In the first phase, quantitative data were gathered by applying the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Questionnaire.190 teachers (95 from Russia and 95 from India) were contacted to obtain data. In the second phase in order to seek further answers to research questions and to explore the causes of conflict among teachers, a qualitative approach was employed and data were collected through semi-structured interviews of total 40 teachers and teacher educators from India as well as Russia. The analysis of the obtained data constituted the third phase of the research. The collected data were processed in numbers and percentages. It was found out that although the ground causes of conflict among teachers in India and Russia are different, teachers prefer adopting a collaborative style to resolve conflicts in case it come to light.The findings reported in the research are of certain theoretical and practical value and can be used when compiling such university courses as Classroom Management, Conflict Management, Teaching Methodology and may assist university administrators to make educational institutions policy.

Keywords:

Comparative study, conflict, conflict-handling mode, conflict management, conflict management style.