An instrument for assessing youth and adolescent conflict management message styles is presented. The CONFLICTALK instrument is intended as a tool for training in school-based peer mediator-conflict manager programs. Data collected from elementary, middle, and high school grades indicate that the scales used in CONFLICTALK measure typical responses to interpersonal and group conflict. Construct validity, using factor analysis, suggests that CONFLICTALK discriminates three conflict styles: (1) adversarial, (2) collaborative, and (3) avoidance across elementary and middle school levels. Conflict message wording for high school students appears less reliable.

This study investigates disputant perception of mediator neutrality resultingfrom storytelling sequence. Volunteer disputants were mediated in role-play mediation sessions by mediators from the Center for Mediation,James Madison University. Three conditions were identified.

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The study reported here examined the current status of mediation in the United States based on responses from 146 mediation centers in thirty‐nine states and the District of Columbia. Specific areas addressed in this survey included staffing and funding concerns, caseload, services provided, mediator qualifications, memberships and affiliations, education, and training. It can be concluded from these survey data that mediation is now a firmly established form of alternative dispute resolution in the United States with services available (for example, community mediation, divorce mediation, and victim‐offender reconciliation programs) to those seeking nontraditional ways of resolving disputes.

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