Restorative Justice in a Florida School District: Leaders Sensemaking and Sensegiving

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Leaders’ Efforts to Better Serve Students and Communities (Table 13)

Abstract

Consistent with this year’s AERA theme of “repair,” this qualitative study examined interviews with school leaders in a Florida district that was implementing restorative practices despite bans on equity-oriented reform. We found that leaders distanced themselves from the equity aspects of the restorative approach and instead emphasized their moral obligations to build and maintain strong relationships with students. While this allowed them to promote restorative practices more than an equity-orientation might, the restorative coordinator reported that racial discrimination and disproportionality persisted in most of the classrooms she observed. We emphasize the limitations of an a-political approach to restorative justice, but the relational framing is adaptive in the context of an extremely restrictive political climate. Implications are discussed for principal preparation.

Authors

• Hilary Lustick, University of Massachusetts - Lowell

• Alounso A. Gilzene, Florida State University

• Leah Register, Florida State University