Learning to manage conflicts in physical education classes from the sports tactical game: a teaching model for understanding

Abstract

Scientific literature confirms the potential that conflict can generate in the classroom when its negative meaning is overcome and it is inserted into the educational process. This positive perspective to conflict should be assumed by the different educators of any school institution to implement alternative programs to violence and teach how to handle conflicts constructively. Physical Education (PE) is unusual to promote conflict management in a real practical space and in a game context with attacking and defending teams. From this point of view, the main goal of the text is to show a teaching proposal aimed at the last years of primary education. The research study, continued in the form of a doctoral thesis, is framed in a quasi-experimental method on a two-group design (experimental and control), from a sample of 130 participants from two schools in Cullera (Valencia). The treatment (program) is designed from the game's own tactic, and the ‘collateral conflict’ is incorporated into its structure, as a didactic purpose, to learn to manage it among its participating members. Regarding educational practice, it should be reflected that it takes its origin from comprehensive teaching; it is based on an organizational participatory-collaborative strategy; and is integrated into a setting of mediating culture. In the PE context, it is concluded that the tactical-sports method could be an alternative to educate positive conflict management, enabling students to face communication barriers and learn to counteract their destructive stereotypes.