Defining Inclusive mediation: Theory, practice, and research

• Date: 01 June 2020
• Author: Lorig Charkoudian,Caroline Harmon‐Darrow,Michele Ennis,Erricka Bridgeford,Tracee Ford
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21279

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Defining Inclusive mediation: Theory, practice,

and research

Caroline Harmon-Darrow

1

| Lorig Charkoudian

2

|

Tracee Ford

2

| Michele Ennis

3

| Erricka Bridgeford

2

1

University of Maryland Baltimore School

of Social Work, Baltimore, Maryland

2

Community Mediation Maryland,

Takoma Park, Maryland

3

Tri-Community Mediation, Salisbury,

Maryland

Correspondence

Caroline Harmon-Darrow, University of

Maryland Baltimore School of Social

Work, 525 W. Redwood Street, Baltimore,

MD 21201.

Email: charmon@ssw.umaryland.edu

Abstract

The Inclusive approach to mediation was created in

Maryland in the 1990s to bring the radical inclusion

already deeply woven into the community mediation

movement to the mediation table as a core belief and

practice. Community mediation includes all places

(neighborhoods where the dispute occurred), times

(convenient to the participants), problems (even if ille-

gal), and people (not just those on a court filing)

involved in the conflict. In Inclusive mediation, this

inclusivity is applied in the mediation process, welcom-

ing all ideas without filtering or changing them, and

working with all types of expression without designing

or enforcing communication guidelines.

1|INTRODUCTION

The philosophy and craft of the Inclusive mediation approach are defined here, as practiced

since 1995 in several jurisdictions and programs of the state of Maryland and elsewhere, includ-

ing its theoretical roots, research base, defining qualities, core skills, and history.

2|WHY DEFINE MEDIATION APPROACHES?

Motivated by a belief in mediation consumers' rights to understand the service they are being

promised, and by the need to engage tailored evaluation and training, mediation leaders have

been calling for better definition of mediators' practice approaches or styles for over 25 years

(Bush, 2004; Charkoudian, 2012; Charkoudian, de Ritis, Buck, & Wilson, 2009; Della Noce,

2012; Golann, 2000; Pruitt, 2012; Riskin, 1996; Welton, Pruitt, & McGillicuddy, 1988). In the

context of advocacy for more reliably high-quality services across the alternative dispute

Received: 17 December 2019 Revised: 27 January 2020 Accepted: 27 February 2020

DOI: 10.1002/crq.21279

Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 2020;37:305–324. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crq © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 305

resolution field, Bush (2004) and other leaders in transformative mediation (see Bingham, 2012;

Della Noce, 2012) have called for evaluating mediators within their own style framework,

ensuring that mediators are not judged based on use of skills they do not support, and that the

field as a whole is strengthened by a diversity of practice styles.

Practitioners and scholars have worked to categorize the breadth and intricacies of mediator

styles along useful continua, including: facilitative-evaluative, crossed with narrow-broad inter-

ests (Riskin, 1994); change-outcome orientations (Kauffman & Davis, 1998); and relational-

settlement focus (Kressel, Henderson, Reich, & Cohen, 2012). Further complicating the picture,

actual skills and tactics used by mediators are sometimes different from their stated approach

(Charkoudian et al., 2009), with an overview of 27 civil court programs showing that facilitative

mediators “evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of each side's case, suggested settlement

options, predicted the outcome, or assessed or recommended the settlement value of the case”

in up to three fourths of cases reviewed (Wissler, 2004, p. 64). In addition, mediators debate

whether practitioners can or should commit to a single unified approach or style. Some have

asserted that approach is context- and organization-dependent (Golann, 2000); can change

across the life of a single case (Golann, 2000; Pruitt, 2012); and contains behaviors so disputed

by practitioners that it cannot sustain the false coherence and import placed upon it (Della

Noce, 2012).

According to the classic definitions like Riskin's, Inclusive mediation is more facilitative

than evaluative, and Inclusive trainers teach a unified philosophy, discouraging an eclectic

practice that changes by case or stage of case. This description of the growing Inclusive media-

tion approach is offered with gratitude to those who have built the traditions from which it

grows, knowing the benefits of clear definitions to consumers and practitioners, and mindful of

the particular challenges in clarifying the nuanced and complex practices like mediation.

3|THEORETICAL ROOTS OF INCLUSIVE MEDIATION

Like the alternative dispute resolution movement generally, Inclusive mediation is rooted in

conflict theory. As envisioned in the 1940s, 50s and 60s by Lewin (1947), Deutsch (1949), Coser

(1964) and Adams (1966) conflict theory held, variously, that conflict was itself a neutral force,

which could cause positive (e.g., social change, in the tradition of Marx and Hegel) or negative

(e.g., violence) results, through cooperation or competition. By the early 70s, Scanzoni (1972),

Sprey (1974) and others were applying this concept to family life, that conflict in families can be

a positive element, if directed toward positive change and people getting their needs met, not

toward violence and division. From conflict theory, conflict resolution program theories and

practitioners have taken as central the project of separating conflict from conflict tactics, and

people from the problem to be solved (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 1981; Schellenberg, 1996).

Like the community mediation movement generally, Inclusive mediation has its roots in

principles of community justice, where conflict belongs to the people and communities

involved, not to an impersonal state. This model held that community members should identify

and bring conflicts to light, not bury them in bureaucracies. Police, courts and corrections were

not being overburdened, they were being misused to handle many issues that were between

neighbors, coworkers, family members. Victims were erased in this system, both as actors, and

as recipients of restitution, as in ancient systems of justice. Out of these ideas, came two theo-

ries and practices: the restorative justice movement (Bazemore, 2001; Umbreit, Coates, & Vos,

2004; Zehr, 1990, and many others) and the neighborhood/community justice or community

306 HARMON-DARROW ET AL.