Level of legal knowledge and its relationship to certain conflict management strategies of secondary public school principals in the State of Kuwait

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Associate Professor, Department of Educational Administration and Planning, College of Education, Kuwait University

Abstract

The study aims to identify the extent to which school principals possess legal knowledge and its relationship to some conflict management strategies prevalent among principals of public education schools in the State of Kuwait, and to show the differences between their responses according to the variable of job experience, and educational district.  It adopted the descriptive approach of applying two tools: the legal knowledge measure and the specific identification of conflict management on a sample of (131) from the school principals and assistant principals in secondary public schools  in Kuwait. The results showed that the level of legal knowledge of school administrators and assistants was average. The most practiced conflict strategy was the strategy of cooperation, then the strategy of coercion, then the strategy of avoidance. The results showed a predictive relationship between the level of legal knowledge and the strategies of conflict management, as legal knowledge contributes to cooperation and compromising strategy of conflict management, while principals with intermediate legal knowledge tend to avoid conflict. The study recommended developing the legal knowledge and awareness of conflict management methods of school principals through training programs after and before the service.

Keywords


 
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