Mediation techniques in secondary education should take into account gender differences to enhance effectiveness: Evidence from secondary schools in Catalonia

International institutions, national and regional governments are promoting a culture that includes the use of mediation in the secondary schools. The literature review and the previous empirical research suggest that the introduction of mediation as an alternative way for conflict resolution helps to improve school climate, improving students' perception of the school life, helping to achieve better academic result;, nevertheless contributing to the development of skills, team working spirit, empathy and better communication skills that would be very useful in their adult life. However, in order to design efficient mediation systems to understand how students feel and react in front of mediation training is a previous key issue. This research has been conducted in five different secondary schools in the city of Barcelona and its outskirts, with 367 students answering a survey about school climate and their own feelings about mediation. The focus of the analysis is to find significant statistic differences according gender in terms of how efficient and useful students consider mediation as an alternative mean of conflict resolution. Girls give higher average values when asked about if mediation have been explained and used, and they find more useful mediation than their male peers.