In chapter one the researcher discusses how conflict has been and still is a prevalent reality of our lives and world, and how education and religious education can promote the welfare of students in high schools by fostering effective methods of managing conflict.

Beginning with a sense of the growing awareness in recent years of the frequency and destructive consequences of harassment, intimidation, and students picking on one another—what may be called bullying and violence in schools—chapter 2 of the dissertation treats the origins and effects of destructive conflict and the need for early intervention. Overall, this researcher found that not all conflicts are undesirable, but that conflict can be destructive when it is particularly pervasive. This researcher submits that a proactive stance to prevent destructive conflict can be based on an effort to teach children, beginning in early childhood, to manage conflict and by intervening in the lives of children to counter the effects of destructive conflict. These efforts to teach conflict management and resolution can be continued by schools and supported by family-school and community.

In chapter 3, this researcher discusses how family is an ever-changing set of interactions. Families are persons of ever-changing set of interactions, and how a child who grows up in a family that is plagued by conflict is likely, upon entering school, to be an initiator of destructive conflict and be unable to manage conflict well.

Chapter 4 explores education for a culture of peace and pro-social behavior. The researcher proposes that society needs to foster a partnership culture as an alternative to domination culture.

Chapter 5, in discussing educational responses to destructive conflict, explores how students, administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, and by extension, the wider community benefit when values/character education and development of conflict resolution skills are included as a dimension of high school educational curriculum and practices. The chapter reviews some prominent contemporary moral/character education programs and analyzes the "School as a Caring Community Profile" (SCCP) as a model for effective moral values/character education and conflict resolution programming.