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Question 12. Does the plurality of understandings and language with
multiple meanings reveal a moment in the development of mediation
that can be generalized to other professions?
This research would suggest that a profession “in development” goes
through a period of confusion that results in simultaneous and multiple visions
of its field of work. If the results of this research can be generalized to other
professions, it can be said that this period has two features: 1) having a
common language with multiple meanings, and 2) a process of self-
articulation. This latter point involves individuals bringing to the conscious
level their idea of themselves as a profession. It is being suggested that this
self-articulating process is a significant phase in the emergence of a
profession and a profession in-transition (as may be the case with law).
Thus, sociologists might expect developing professions to have
different visions that are described using the same language. Yet, when the
language is tested for meaning, the meanings are found to be multifarious.
Of course, the fact that mediators have many educational and training routes,
not just one, could account for some of the diversity found in this study.
Professional workers develop their professional character, values, attitudes
and knowledge through their training. In fact, their training is viewed as a
process of “socialization” (McFarlane, 1961). It is not surprising then, to find
that mediators have varying conceptions of their work. But perhaps there is
more going on than this. Looking behind common language to find a plurality

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of meanings as part of a self-articulating process may itself be a legitimate
way to understand the growth process of occupational groups.
Stable professions fit easily into models. It would seem that emerging
professions do not. This study moved beyond trying to fit mediation into a
dualistic trait-based continuum by examining the meaning of mediation. It
posits that the plurality of meaning it found represents a process of self-
discovery where members of the occupation are engaged in actively
discovering themselves and each other. And, it suggests that this represents
a key time in the emergence of a profession. Further research could test this
hypothesis for its application to other developing professions.
In summary, these and other questions emanating from this study call
for a research agenda to be set in Canada. Mediation leaders, practitioners,
consumers, researchers, and policy-makers along with representatives from
the public, private and government sectors are encouraged to collaboratively
construct this agenda. This would help to ensure that the needs of the
various interest groups were met. It would also allow a research agenda to
be constructed in an integrative and inclusive fashion. Before concluding this
chapter comments on some of the limitations of this study will be made.

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IV. Limitations of the Study
One of the first limitations of this study might be the use of self-report
data. This form of data collection was chosen for this highly exploratory study
because it provided the opportunity to gather rich data on mediators
conceptions of their work based on their “lived experience”. The self-report
data was then used to construct the coded conceptual categories for
understanding mediation approaches, which in many instances were
generated from the actual words used by respondents. These conceptual
categories can now be used in larger studies. This method of data collection
led to the insight that mediators use the same words to mean different things.
Given some of the limitations of self-report measures including establishing
validity of the measure and the problem of social desirability (Podsakoff and
Organ, 1986), caution is urged in generalizing to the larger mediation
community.
A second limitation of this study concerns the length and complexity of
the questionnaire. Many respondents reported taking in excess of five hours
to complete. The extent of the time required for completing the survey might
well have deterred some from responding. Still and all the response level
was quite high at fifty-two percent.
A third limitation of this study is the size of the sample. Eighty-eight
(88) mediation trainer-practitioners were included in the study. Many of the

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analytical cells used to interpret the data were small, which limit making any
generalizations from these findings. Given that this was an exploratory, not
an evaluative study, generalizations from these findings can be the work of
future research.
A fourth limitation relates to the use of mediation trainers as the study
group. At this point in time there is not sufficient evidence to confidently
know whether trainers form a population of their own, or whether they share
general characteristics with the wider population of Canadian mediators.
A fifth limitation has to do with using professional association
membership lists and self-report databases for research purposes. The
information contained in the databases used in this study was found to have
considerably fewer numbers of trainer-practitioners than indicated. To
speculate on this, it may be that the rapid turnover in those doing the work of
a mediator makes it difficult to keep lists current. To speculate further, it may
also be that individuals report activities that are exaggerated because they
would like to be doing the work, not because they actually are. A word of
caution to other researchers wishing to replicate this study using the same
databases is that these lists are less than reliable.
A sixth limitation concerns the limited relevance of certain questions.
Eliminating some of the questions on the instrument would have shorted the

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time needed to complete it and in turn more mediation trainer-practitioners
might have completed the survey increasing the sample. Furthermore,
asking questions related to the types of disputes that were being mediated,
not just in what sector respondents mediated would have allowed for analysis
to be done on the type of disputes mediated within each sector and across
sectors. Analysis on various types of disputes and different understandings
of mediation could have been undertaken.
A final limitation of this study was the lack of detailed information on
respondents’ mediation training. The information collected was not all that
useful other than it indicated when respondents had taken their first mediation
training. Collecting more information on the content of respondents’ training
would have allowed analysis of an individual’s pattern of conceptual
understandings of mediation with their mediation training. Given that this
research did find connections between patterns of meaning and educational
background, it likely that there are connections between how mediators
conceptualize their approach to mediation and the mediation model in which
they were trained.
Conclusion
This study provides a snapshot of how mediation is conceptualized in
the late 1990’s by those who both work as mediators and teach others to
mediate. It depicts mediation as a dynamic, complex and evolving work form

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where differences in understandings about its nature were found to be linked
to gender, educational background of the mediator, the dispute sector in
which an individual mediates, and the amount of time they have been
practicing as a mediator. Given the amount of diversity in how mediators
understand their work, it is not surprising to find considerable difference of
opinion on how the field should be organized. In Chapter 3, some of these
conflicting views as well as mediators’ concerns over what they see to be
taking place in the field are discussed. The strongest of these concerns is
that mediation will take on a more legalistic form with the entry of the legal
profession and that it will loose its grassroots focus and alternative goals.
The primary task of this study was to unmask the richness and
complexities of mediation that were lost in bipolar views of “best practice”.
The study was exploratory, qualitative and based on grounded theory. It drew
from interpretive sociology to legitimate its efforts to obtain knowledge about
the nature of mediation by revealing what mediators mean by the work they
do. In Chapters 5 and 6, an in depth analysis of how respondents
conceptualize their role, their style and their orientation to mediation can be
found. The results of this analysis were depicted on a matrix table as a way
to study clusters of mediation traits. As discussed in Chapter 7, these
mediation traits interact to form at least four interrelated patterns of mediation
meanings. Finding more than two sets of meanings led to one of this study’s
important insights – that dichotomous modeling of mediation approaches

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presented in the extant literature is not the way mediators think about their
work. As an outgrowth of this study an analytical model from which to engage
and study interacting patterns of meanings has been developed. This
heuristic “tool” is not a rigid concept but is imagined as an emerging and
dynamic construct that can help examine not only mediation traits and
interacting patterns of meaning found in this study but others which remain to
be discovered in other studies.
Suffice it to say at this point that there are many meanings for
mediation, and differences in what mediation means for mediators have some
connection to contextual factors. This study makes major contributions to the
knowledge about mediation. At the same time, it has only begun to scratch
the surface on the interrelatedness between context and meaning. As an
exploratory study, this work presents some exciting insights about what is
meant by mediation. Insights that hopefully will motivate further inquiry. And,
it offers some tools to aid with this task.

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