Making the Case for Restorative Justice: A Network Analysis of School Discipline Reform Discourse

• In Event: 35.077 - MTCC Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: 35.077-5 - Understanding Education Politics and Policy Networks With Social Network Analysis

Abstract

Restorative justice has gained attention as a potential antidote to the educational, social, and psychological harms entailed by punitive school discipline policies and practices (Gregory, Skiba, & Kavitha, 2017). Restorative approaches include the commitments to bring students together to understand the harms brought to individuals and the community by particular behaviors, to collectively determine appropriate ways to repair harm, and to reintegrate students and to strengthen relationships following a disruptive incident (Kline, 2016). Activists, educators, and policymakers concerned about the relationship between racial disproportionality in suspension rates, racial achievement gaps, and the mass incarceration of Black and Latino males in the United States have advocated for restorative practices as a means to ensure racial justice. Many large school districts have adopted codes of conduct that recommend or require restorative practices, and the Obama administration issued guidance to support districts in implementing restorative approaches. On the other hand, concern for school safety and national attention to school shootings have led the Trump administration and others to oppose the reforms dismantling zero tolerance policies introduced in the 1990s. Following the 2018 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, “post-truth” Republican leaders utilized the emotional economy of the tragedy to hold the Obama administration’s guidance in part responsible, claiming that more forgiving approaches to school discipline permit violence in schools (Blad, 2018). After a rise in support, the future of restorative justice in school discipline is unclear.

In order to understand the politics and contexts of school discipline reform in the U.S., I examine the actors and their arguments in debates regarding restorative justice. Which individuals and organizations are driving the discourse, and how have their arguments in favor of or in opposition to restorative justice changed over time? What evidence and events have these actors invoked?

I analyze media gathered with a Google alert from 2010 to 2018 with the terms “restorative discipline justice school.” This longitudinal data set consists of 1,223 articles and editorials from national and regional comprehensive news organizations (e.g., The Chicago Tribune) and education-focused news outlets (e.g., Chalkbeat). I descriptively code each piece for the author, the author’s role (e.g., parent, journalist), publication, and overall orientation toward restorative discipline. I then use an approach informed by discourse network analysis (Leifeld, 2017) in which I analyze the text of each piece for the individuals and organizations mentioned and the content of their argument in favor of or against restorative justice reforms. With a consolidated set of the most frequent actors and arguments, I employ social network analysis (Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman, 2002) to visualize the relationships between actors and arguments over time periods demarcated by events frequently invoked in the discourse, such as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Findings reveal how discursive tools within the restorative justice debate have developed over time and indicate how actors have responded to the changing political and social context to further their position. I discuss implications for school discipline reform advocates and for scholars of social movements and the politics of education.

Author

• Rachel Garver, Montclair State University