Paradigm Shifting for Justice in Schools

• In Event: Imagining Future Selves and Possibilities: The Engines of Education in the Public Sphere

Abstract

Purpose/Objectives:
The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for restorative and transformative justice work in schools. If restorative justice is a paradigm, how can educators become “paradigm shift communicators” while using their pedagogical tools to foster purpose and belonging for all students?

Theoretical Framework:
Building on a sociocritical framework (Gutierrez, 2008), this paper demonstrates how restorative and transformative justice circle processes have the potential to become boundary-crossing social networks where students and teachers engage as stakeholders in a participatory democracy. How can restorative justice circle processes aid and support students and educators in imagining their future selves? How can restorative justice circle processes support students and educators to access their “usable pasts” for imagining their futures?

Methods:
Using case study methodology, the author was a participant observer in schools and community organizations with a stated goal of creating and sustaining a restorative justice paradigm in their respective spaces from 2012-2016. As part of her participant observation, the author participated in several restorative justice trainings including “Building Community,” “Repairing Harm,” and “Restorative Justice and Trauma Informed Practices” (RTIPS) training. The author generated field notes, interviewed key personnel and students (including a focus group interview with students), collected literacy artifacts such as training manuals and materials used in schools and organizations. All interviews were transcribed and coded in two cycles. Interview transcriptions were also coded using discourse analysis building tasks and, more specifically, “relationships” building tasks that seek to understand the role of language in social relationships (Gee, 2014), documenting how dialogic relationship building evolved.

In addition, the author modeled these restorative justice processes with pre-service teachers, with similar roles as participant observer, analyzing field notes and interviews with pre-service teachers. Pre-service work includes helping teachers integrate restorative justice practices and goals into their literacy instruction in ELA secondary classes, influencing text selection and supports for engagement.

Results:
The author found that students and educators shared aspects of their lives that were relevant to the restorative justice circle process topic that provided all participants with new ways of relating to each other and new lenses to view each other, important for navigating the challenges and lifecourse opportunities of schooling. Students reported these exchanges in restorative justice circle processes impacted their relationship to educators beyond the circles. In both contexts, the dialogic processes yielded transformative projections around healing relationships and generative conceptions of abilities to be resilient in the face of challenge, for students wrestling with both school and personal challenges and for teachers wrestling with their own conundrums around understanding student resistance from a humanistic standpoint.

Scholarly contribution:
The author is using these findings to inform restorative and transformative justice trainings for preservice and in-service teachers in secondary schools. Additionally, these findings are being used to support preservice teachers in taking pedagogical stances that address holistic needs of students in navigating challenge and imagining future possitilities prior to entering the field so they can align their teaching philosophies with their practices. (493)

Author

• Maisha T. Winn, University of California, Davis