Conflict and Higher Education: Narratives and Experiences of Young University Students of Social and Human Sciences

Abstract

This paper is one of the products of a doctoral thesis, which inquired for power, conflict and pluralism in relationships among university students. Its content is specifically focused on presenting the results of a category devoted for “conflict". The research was conducted with a qualitative approach, from a hermeneutical method, with 119 students from four universities in the department of Antioquia (Colombia). The data were taken through workshops with interactive techniques and semi-structured interviews to understand conceptions, meanings, causes and types of coping strategies that students faced in the conflict among them. The findings are mainly focused on: a) the stress between the individualist evasion and the mobilization by the "between us", b) The polarization between the “must be" and the "doing for a real", c) The tendency of students to standardize conflict and violence, and d) the difficult transition from the complaint to the subjective responsibility. The results show pendulum movements arisen from the complexity of the conflict and its edges, and evidence the naturalization of violent expressions, trivialization of exclusion mechanisms, precariousness regarding the use of positive strategies to face problematic situations, the little congruence between what is thought and what is done, and the lack of responsibility on the part of many young people who have defined the causes of the conflict as external elements from them...