How "Restorative Justice" Becomes "Restorative Practice" or "Restorative Discipline," and Why It Matters

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Fourteen
  In Roundtable Session: Good Intentions? The Search for Equity, Agency, and Restoration in Education Policy (Table 5)

Abstract

While student and community demands for restorative justice are often attached to a demand to transform public schools, “restorative justice” (RJ) in the hands of state institutions serves a different purpose. Specifically, “restorative justice” becomes manipulated into a deradicalized neoliberal “restorative practice” that refocuses on changing the individual student without transforming public education.
In this paper, I argue that while student and community demands for restorative justice are often attached to a broader critique of schooling that seeks to transforms systems that harm marginalized students, “restorative justice” in the hands of state institutions serves a different purpose. Specifically, “restorative justice” becomes manipulated into a deradicalized neoliberal “restorative practice” that refocuses on changing the individual without transforming systems.

Author

• Akua Nkansah-Amankra, University of Illinois at Chicago
  Presenting Author