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Alternative Dispute Resolution

Code: 100437 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2500257 Criminology OT 4

Contact

Name:
Jenny Cubells Serra
Email:
jenny.cubells@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

You should have finished at least 120 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System), which represents about four semesters of your university degree. 

The course will be taught from the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Theory and seminar sessions will be held in Spanish.


Objectives and Contextualisation

Conflicts are part of our reality and should not be seen as isolated events, but as part of daily reality. Rarely conflicts are seen as an opportunity or as inevitable enrichment of our human experience, but in fact conflicts are a fundamental tool in lifelong learning.

Main goals

  • To identify conflicts, to differentiate them from other social phenomena and to recognize them as key elements in social events
  • To learn to analyse a conflict, detecting correctly all the elements and applying one or more theoretical models for understanding and transforming conflicts
  • To understand and apply the various alternatives for conflict resolution
  • To using knowledge about conflict resolution both in prevention and in addressing crimes and criminal behaviour
  • Explore the potential of virtual reality in conflict management.
  • Incorporate the gender perspective in the analysis and management of conflicts.

Competences

  • Ability to analyse and summarise.
  • Applying a crime prevention program at a community level.
  • Applying an intervention proposal about a person serving a sentence.
  • Assessing the victim's needs in order to carry out an intervention proposal.
  • Carrying out the criminological intervention on the basis of the values of pacification, social integration and prevention of further conflicts.
  • Designing a crime prevention program.
  • Drawing up an academic text.
  • Identifying existing social resources to intervene in the conflict and criminality.
  • Students must demonstrate a comprehension of the best crime prevention and intervention models for each specific problem.
  • Using the evaluation techniques of criminogenic risk and needs of a person in order to decide an intervention proposal.
  • Verbally transmitting ideas to an audience.
  • Working autonomously.
  • Working in teams and networking.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Ability to analyse and summarise.
  2. Acting in a professional way in the criminological field for pacifying, social integration and delinquency-prevention purposes.
  3. Applying a prevention program for crime control agents.
  4. Applying an effective evaluative model in order to detect the criminological intervention needs in prison population.
  5. Appropriately applying social resources to criminality.
  6. Appropriately managing a security or prevention team.
  7. Demonstrating they know the means and scientific procedures of crime prevention.
  8. Drawing up a delinquency prevention program.
  9. Drawing up an academic text.
  10. Effectively and individually implementing a criminological intervention.
  11. Effectively developing a delinquency prevention program in the community area.
  12. Intervening in the criminological field for pacifying, conciliatory and crime-prevention purposes.
  13. Mastering the individual evaluation techniques of a criminal act.
  14. Producing a social prevention program of delinquency.
  15. Properly using the criminological prevention and intervention programs.
  16. Verbally transmitting ideas to an audience.
  17. Working autonomously.
  18. Working in teams and networking.

Content

PART I. Foundations for a psychosocial understanding of conflict
 1. Conflictology as an alternative view of social phenomena in the 21st century. Conflict is a universal, natural and timeless phenomenon. Basic principles. Conflict and peace.
2. Theories of conflict. The realist theory of conflict. The social identity theory. The social construction of conflict.

PART II. How is conflict managed?
3. Conflict management with a gender and intersectional perspective. Conflict management with a gender and intersectional perspective.
4. Communication in conflict Ways of dealing with conflict. Marshall Rosenberg's principles of non-violent communication.
5. Conflict management techniques. Conflict analysis. Arbitration. Negotiation. Conciliation. Mediation. Reconciliation. Trial.

PART III. Areas of intervention
6. Violence at school: Bullying
Intervention model from conflictology
7. An example of psychosocial conflict in the criminological field with the contributions of conflictology. Case study
8. Virtual reality: an effective tool for conflict resolution?


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures 19.5 0.78 2, 11, 13, 12, 8, 14
Seminars 19.5 0.78 2, 5, 11, 13, 8, 14, 16, 18, 15
Type: Autonomous      
Student's external work (personal work) 111 4.44 4, 7, 13, 12, 14, 1, 17, 18, 15

The methodology of the course will combine theory classes with seminars. The aim of the theory sessions is to provoke reflection and encourage critical thinking, engaging students in tasks that go beyond simple memorisation, working mainly with challenge-based learning. Seminars are a way of approaching an active learning model, an essential complement to the information obtained in the theoretical classes. Classroom exercises (reading seminars, presentation of conflict analysis in the field of criminology) will be combined with the study and analysis of real cases.

In the theory sessions we will have the collaboration of professionals from the Subdirecció general de Reparació i Execució Penal a la Comunitat and Nicolàs Bartes who is developing his doctoral thesis exploring the potential of virtual reality in the field of intervention and crime prevention.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Case study on a social conflict and presentation of the results 35% 0 0 2, 5, 4, 3, 7, 11, 12, 9, 1, 16, 18
Class attendance (according to compulsory attendance system) and quick tests 5% 0 0 2, 5, 11, 13, 12, 14, 16, 15
Practical exercise on non-violent communication 25% 0 0 2, 5, 4, 3, 7, 6, 10, 12, 17, 15
multiple-choice test 35% 0 0 2, 3, 11, 13, 12, 8, 16, 17, 15

1. System of compulsory attendance to classes

a) Attendance is mandatory. Professors will register absences for each session, which can be justified or unjustified. Absences can only be justified for reasons of illness, other important inconveniences and for academic reasons previously authorized by the teaching staff.

b) If a student does not attend at least 80% of teaching, he or she cannot be evaluated.

c) Justified absences cannot be counted negatively. The professor must enable the student to recover the work done in class in the case of excused absence. This kind of justified absences must be documented. Justified absences are those resulting from situations which prevent students from attending educational activities, such as unexpected illness or similar situations. Teachers may consider also justified absences the situations in which students have to attend (and document) other training activities of the degree.

2. Requirements to pass the course

A minimum mark of 5 will be required for each of the course's learning outcomes in order to pass the course. The weight in the final grade of each of the activities is marked in the learning outcomes scheme.
Students will be assessed if they have completed a set of activities, the weight of which is equivalent to at least 2/3 of the total qualification for the course. If the value of the activities carried out does not reach this threshold, the teacher of the course may consider the student as not assessable.

4.The multiple-choice exam with the rest of the students. The written exam will consist of a maximum of 45 minutes of oral exposition of the study carried out on the social conflict and answering the questions on the other two exercises carried out and the theoretical bases of conflictology. The oral exam will have a weight of 35%.

3. Resit

If a student fails any of the activities, he or she will have a possibility of a new evaluation by doing a new activity at the end of the classes.

4. Consequences of fraud

A student who cheats or attempts to cheat in an exam will have zero in the subject and will lose the right to be re-evaluated. A student who presents a practice that has indications of plagiarism or who cannot justify the arguments of his or her practice will obtain 0 as grade and will receive a warning. In case of repetition, the student will receive a zero as final grade and will lose the right of re-assessment. Given that there is no exam in this subject, the last evidence that involves the case study and that weighs 30% of the final mark will receive the same treatment as an exam. 

If a student copies or attempts to copy in the exam, he / she will fail the subject with a zero and will lose the right to re-evaluation. A plagiarism in a task will lead to the suspension of work and recidivism, the suspension of the subject and the loss of the right to reassessment.

5. Late presentations

They are not accepted, except in cases of force majeure. The student will get a zero in the undelivered practice.

6. Punctuality

Classes start on time. Except in duly justified cases, admission to class is not allowed once it has started. It is also not permitted to leave class before the scheduled end time. 

 

7. Single assessment system

In order to pass the single assessment, the student must present three written evidences and take an examination

1. A practical exercise on descriptive communication whit gender perspective, which has a weight of 30% and consists in

Documenting communication in conflicts and especially non-violent communication as described by Marshall B. Rosenberg.
Analyse 6 fragments of relevant 20th and 21st century speeches,  establis hwhether the communication is violent or non-violent and establish proposals for improvement for each of the speeches chosen.
2. The study of a relevant social conflict in criminology, with the design of an intervention whit gender perspective based on the principles of conflictology, with a weight of 35%, which will consist of:

The complete analysis of the conflict based on the model and/or theory of your choice.
The use of an intervention model to improve the conditions of the chosen conflict.
The establishment of a prognosis for the conflict, based on the analysis carried out.

3.The multiple-choice exam with the rest of the students. The written exam will consist of a maximum of 45 minutes of oral exposition of the study carried out on the social conflict and answering the questions on the other two exercises carried out and the theoretical bases of conflictology. The oral exam will have a weight of 35%.


Bibliography

Mandatory readings

Gracia-Alarcón, E. & Bermeo-Sevilla, M. R. (2016, 26 Setembre-1 octubre). Mediación con enfoque de género. [Conference presentation]. XII Congreso Mundial de Mediación. Bogotá, Colombia. https://www.congresodemediacion.com/mundial2016/pdf/garciaalarconbermeosevilla.pdf

MarKus, M. & Paulero, R. (2021). Perspectiva de género y mediación. Revista de mediación, 14(2), 1-8.

Rosenberg, M. (2006). Comunicación no violenta. Un lenguaje de vida. GranAldea Editores

Complementary readings

Calvo-Soler, R. (2014). Mapeo de conflictos. Técnica para la exploración de los conflictos. Gedisa Editorial.

Cubells, J. (2004). Una lectura del conflicto psicosocial en el ámbito jurídico desde la perspectiva construccionista. Persona y Sociedad, 28(1), 191-210.

Cornelius, H. & Faire, S. (1989). Tú ganas yo gano. Cómo resolver conflictos creativamente y disfrutar con las soluciones. Gaia ediciones. 

Coser, L.A. (1967). Les fonctions du conflit social. Puf Edicions. 

Fisher, R., Ury, W., Patton, W. (1998). Obtenga el sí: El arte de negociar sin ceder. Gestión 2000. 

Freund, J. (1995). Sociología del conflicto. EME.

Galtung, J. (1998). Tras la violencia, 3R: reconstrucción, reconciliación, resolución. Afrontando los efectos visibles e invisibles de la guerra y la violencia. Ed. Bakeaz & Gernika Gogoratuz.

Lederach, J.P. (2000). El abecé de la paz y los conflictos. Educación para la paz. Catarata. 

Mínguez, X. (2013). Una perspectiva psicosocial del conflicto profundo desde la complejidad. Revista Iberoamericana para la Investigación y el Desarrollo Educativo, 10, 1-18.

Munduate, L. & Martínez, J.M. (1998). Conflicto y negociación. Psicología Pirámide. Muldoon. 

Redorta, J. (2004). Cómo analizar los conflictos. La tipología de conflictos como herramienta de mediación. Paidós.

Rosenberg, M. (2006) Comunicación no violenta. un lenguaje de vida. GranAldea Editores.

Suares, M. (2002). Mediación. Conducción dedisputas, comunicación y técnicas. Paidós. 

Touzard, H. (1981). La mediación y la solución de los conflictos. Estudio psicológico. Herder.

Ury, W. (1998). Cómo negociar con personas que adoptan posiciones inflexibles. Gestión 2000.

Vinyamata, E. (2001). Conflictología. Teoría y práctica en resolución de conflictos. Ariel Practicum. 

Vinyamata, E. (1999). Manual de prevención y resolución de conflictos. Conciliación, mediación, negociación. Ariel.


Software

This subject does not use specific software. 


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TE) Theory 1 Spanish first semester morning-mixed