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Working with Older Volunteers in Manual Intergenerational Projects
Constructive handling of conflicts
(“The source of all conflicts between me and my kind is
that I do not say what I mean and do not do what I say”)
(Martin Buber 1878-1965).
When people end up in conflicts, in whatever environment (private or
professional, intercultural or intergenerational...), they frequently perceive
this situation as a disturbance or threat. As a consequence, many avoid conflicts,
escape, or attempt to impose their opinion upon their opponent.
There is, however, another way of dealing with them: I can regard conflicts
as a chance to change things or to create something new. In this case the essential
term is ‘constructive conflict resolution’. Everyone can learn this kind
of dealing with conflicts. This chapter provides you with ideas for practical
exercises.
The basic requirement for a successful conflict resolution lies in the identification
of such conflicts. What is in fact a conflict? And what are the possible
causes for it?
Most definitions in specialist literature share the following identifying characteristics:
• Two or more people have different opinions, desires, goals, values or behaviours,
• which seem to be simultaneous, oppositional and incompatible,
• the involved parties perceive the resulting situation as distressing,
• it causes an urge to act and
• a tendency of escalation.
They usually evoke a feeling of fear in us, even though we should really see
them as an opportunity, because conflicts make us aware of problems, deepen
relationships, require creativity and further our personality.
The first step to any form of constructive conflict resolution therefore lies
in the realisation to perceive a conflict as an opportunity.
The second step consists of conflict analysis. The causes for conflicts differ
immensely, however they can usually be attributed to one of the following
categories (cf. Klein 2002, p.10):
1. Different goals
2. Different assessments and evaluations of circumstances
3. Role dependencies and competence conflicts
4. Distribution and resource conflicts
5. Relationship conflicts
Conflicts of intercultural and intergenerational kind frequently deal with
differing evaluations and judgements. Every individual has different values,
ideas and traditions depending on his original culture and age group. Furthermore,
different groups are also prejudiced against other groups. However,
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