Inquiries into the removal and mistreatment of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children, national regret, and national apologies constitute a congested political landscape in contemporary Australia. Within two years, two formal apologies were delivered by the prime minister, Kevin Rudd, to individuals who had suffered forced removal from family and…

Despite ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children remain the only people in Australia against whom violence may be justified as discipline. This article presents findings from qualitative research conducted in the State of Victoria, in which children were invited to contextualise incidents of physical…

Conflict management is a skill best learned early in life, and lays a foundation for the development of future relationships. The present study examined the strategies children use when negotiating roles in a dynamic play situation. Participants were 156 children (M age = 6.5 years) in 39 groups of four, who were videotaped in a play activity that…

This study investigates the effects of a training procedure on children's conservation. Volume conservation was induced in twenty-one 8-year-old non-conserving children by a procedure that combined two sources of conflict. First, the competing schemes used in making decisions on volumes were aroused; second, the non-conserver was made aware of a…

Peer mediation programs in schools are an effective way for children to learn the cooperative skills of conflict solving. This paper outlines the implementation of an action research based mediation program within a primary school setting. It examines both the characteristics of successful implementation and the dilemmas of change agentry. A model…