The lack of a systematic approach to the integration of theory and research limits the study, understanding, and practice of parent‐child mediation. This article critically reviews the research on parent‐child mediation to determine its merits and delineate the consistent and important findings it has produced. Both the consistent findings and some specific findings can be linked to relevant theory that may serve to elucidate our understanding of parent‐child mediation. The implications of the theory and research reviewed for the administration and practice of parent‐child mediation are discussed. This integrative approach provides the greatest potential for advancing the practice of parent‐child mediation.

To facilitate the mediation process and resolve family conflicts involving an adolescent optimally, practicing mediators must have a conceptual understanding and theoretical framework of adolescence. The purpose of this article is to review what we know about normative adolescent development, highlighting how adolescents generally cope with stressors and conflict and identifying effects of their development on family dynamics. Implications for practice are discussed by identifying key underlying developmental issues related to parent‐adolescent conflict. Examples of how the conceptual information presented can be integrated and used by parent‐adolescent mediators are provided.

The relationship among preintervention family functioning, conflict characteristics, and mediation outcome and subsequent family functioning was assessed in seventy parent‐child disputes. The Family Environment Scale (FES) profiles indicated that families were distressed, with high levels of dysfunction. Parents and adolescents had divergent perceptions of the conflict. Parental perception, especially that of mothers, was of greater seriousness of the problem related to positive mediation outcome. Positive changes on several FES subscales and overall client satisfaction with the process suggest that parent‐child mediation is an effective intervention modality for helping distressed families in conflict. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

The relationship between extreme social change and the psychological adjustment of adolescents undergoing such change was examined. The impact of extreme social change relative to other conditions of catastrophic social disorganization such as chronic social conflict and violent war-like conditions was also considered. The results indicate that Bedouin adolescents in Israel, members of a community that has experienced drastic social upheaval, show elevated rates of psychopathology. Comparisons of Bedouin adolescents to Palestinian adolescents from the West Bank and Gaza suggest that for older adolescents the impact of extreme social change on mental health adjustment generally parallels that of both chronic social conflict (West Bank) and that of violent war-like conditions (Gaza). However, this pattern did not hold for younger adolescents. In the Bedouin community, younger adolescents demonstrated significantly less adverse impact on adjustment than older adolescents, while such differences did not hold in the West Bank and Gaza. Thus the findings suggest a continuum of adverse impact of the types of social disorganization examined and a possible interaction between type of social disorganization and organismic variables such as age and gender.

peacdeducationis the notion that interventions must occur in early childhood. This implies that teaching nonviolent conflict resolution to adolescents is an exercise in futility. Fortunately, a recent study demonstrated that conflict resolution education can be effective at all educational levels (Jones, 1998). High school students ex-