The Many Colors of Restorative Justice in Schools: Teaching, Learning, and Discipline in an Alternative School

• In Event: Empirical Testing of Restorative Justice Theory

Abstract

This presentation will discuss two studies conducted in 2013 and 2014, and will also include new research to be conducted in the spring of 2016, to better understand the use and practices of restorative justice as a classroom management tool, and as a way to handle disciplinary issues in an alternative school environment. There is a considerable underrepresentation of research on the implementation, sustainability, and development of restorative justice within schools, particularly from the perspectives of students, teachers, and school counselors.

Using the conceptual framework of culturally responsive teaching and developmental discipline to guide the process of data collection and analysis, the presentation will focus on the use of restorative justice practices as a teaching tool, and as a disciplinary tool from the perspectives of teachers, counselors, and students. Six interviews with teachers have been completed, and more than thirty hours of observation have been conducted within an alternative school in Pennsylvania. Further data collection is expected to continue in the spring of 2016, and will include observations and interviews with students, teachers and counselors not previously interviewed in 2013 or 2014.

Author

• Holli Vah Seliskar, Kaplan University / Kent State University