TITLE:
Artificial Intelligence and Conflict Management in School Context: Challenges, Opportunities, and Practical Applications
AUTHORS:
Abílio Afonso Lourenço, Sabina Valente, Maria Olímpia Almeida Paiva
KEYWORDS:
Artificial Intelligence, Conflict Management, Emotional Intelligence, Classroom Psychosocial Environment, Digital Conflicts, School Context
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.17 No.5,
May
19,
2026
ABSTRACT: The growing integration of digital technologies into teenagers’ daily lives has profoundly transformed social interaction dynamics in school settings, giving rise to new forms of conflict and intensifying existing challenges. This study adopts a narrative review approach, based on a purposive selection of interdisciplinary literature, to construct a conceptual synthesis of conflict management in school contexts. The widespread use of mobile devices, social networks, and artificial intelligence-based systems contributes to the emergence of hybrid conflicts that develop simultaneously in online and face-to-face contexts. Hybrid conflicts are understood as conflict dynamics that emerge and evolve across both online and face-to-face contexts, with interactions in digital environments influencing and amplifying tensions in physical school settings, and vice versa. In this scenario, traditional conflict management models prove insufficient, requiring the integration of approaches that articulate socioemotional competencies and emerging technologies. The study analyses the role of artificial intelligence in understanding, preventing, and mediating school conflicts. Building on empirical evidence that underscores the importance of socioemotional competencies in behavior regulation and the promotion of constructive conflict resolution strategies, it discusses how artificial intelligence systems can operationalize processes such as conflict pattern detection, emotion analysis, and support for interpersonal mediation. Practical classroom application examples are presented, including non-violent communication-based mediating chatbots, language analysis systems for early detection of conflict escalation, and immersive environments for socioemotional skills training. Additionally, practical implications and ethical dilemmas associated with the use of artificial intelligence in educational contexts are discussed, with special attention to privacy, algorithmic transparency, and the central role of human relationships. It is concluded that artificial intelligence, when used ethically and integrated with student-centered pedagogical approaches, constitutes a promising tool for promoting more positive, collaborative, and emotionally regulated school environments, complementing, without replacing, the role of human interactions in conflict management.