Search
On-Site Program Calendar
Browse By Day
Browse By Time
Browse By Person
Browse By Room
Browse By Unit
Browse By Session Type
Search Tips
Change Preferences / Time Zone
Sign In
Bluesky
Threads
X (Twitter)
YouTube
This paper argues for the use of reflective practice as a liberatory qualitative research method that supports researchers in surfacing the complexities of restorative practices in schools. Reflective practice has grown in several social service fields, including Education, as a way for practitioners to study their behaviors in practice, especially in gauging how well these behaviors align with their espoused goals and values. However, it is rarely used as a formal research method. To illustrate the possibilities of reflective practice as an RJ research method in this paper, I explain its epistemological premises and share my research experiences with restorative justice reflective practice groups.
As I define it, reflective practice is a systematic and conscious process by which we think about or experience what we are doing in practice and understand why we are doing it (Arms Almengor, 2018). It is a means of understanding practice through the lens of the practitioner. It can take many shapes and be exercised alone or with others, but all reflective practice processes share a common iterative cycle that asks questions in the following categories: “What happened?”, “What does it mean?”, and “What will we do with our new understanding?” Sub-questions under each of these are tailored to the practitioner’s specific practice puzzle. Importantly, a reflective practice approach closes the researcher-practitioner gap by increasing the practitioner’s epistemic cognition (King & Kitchener, 1994) - their capacity to determine how they know.
Further, for researchers who are interested in supporting restorative (healing, humanizing, and non-transactional) values in their work with RJ practitioners, reflective practice is a means to democratize and decolonize research. In the same way that restorative justice processes give primacy to the voice and choice of community stakeholders, so reflective practice is an approach to investigation that lifts and legitimizes the knowledge production of those in the “front lines” of restorative processes. It is – as reflective practice theorist, Donald Schön, put it – knowledge that turns “the problem upside down,” by letting experience lead the way to theory (Schön, 1987). By giving anyone the power to be a systematic researcher, reflective practice methods challenge the hierarchical and exclusive norms of formal research.
Currently, formal research and evaluations of restorative justice programs and practices are largely carried out by individuals whose allegiances lie with institutions of higher learning, consulting agencies, or grant-making bodies. As a liberatory practice, reflective practice empowers restorative practitioners in owning and guiding the knowledge created from and about them and their participants. That said, the frequent ambiguities associated with reflective practice by those who are less familiar with the concept can easily render it a superficial and ineffective practice. I propose ways that we can support schools-based restorative research communities in deepening their use of reflective practice while upholding the restorative values they espouse.