Prescriptive/Elicitive Training

John Paul Lederach has articulated the distinction between training approaches which impose (prescribe) a conciliation model and the trainer/mediator’s knowledge, and approaches which draw out (elicit) the common sense knowledge of the trainees/disputants in order to facilitate the creation of new, culturally appropriate models.

This diagram contrasts the “pure” prescriptive and “pure” elicitive approaches. As Lederach stresses, all training and intervention falls somewhere between the two extremes, and much of the efforts at the prescriptive end of the spectrum would be more empowering – helpful in the long-term – if they had a more elicitive orientation.