Impacts of Restorative Justice Policies on the Use of Exclusionary Discipline in Schools

• In Event: Restorative Justice

Abstract

There is a growing movement in U.S. primary and secondary schools to use restorative justice practices for disciplining students and reduce the use of exclusionary forms of discipline (i.e., suspensions and expulsions). As more studies highlight the harmful and disparate outcomes of exclusionary discipline for students – particularly minority students – schools and school districts across the country are implementing alternative approaches, including restorative justice conferences or mediations. To examine the impact of school district restorative justice policies on the use of exclusionary discipline in district schools, I collected information on restorative justice policies in 100 randomly selected U.S. school districts and discipline data for all schools within these districts (N = 1,205) from the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) for the 2017-18 school year. Using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM), I assessed the impact of district-level restorative justice policies on counts of exclusionary discipline in schools. Findings inform whether the push to implement restorative justice-based policies in school districts is a viable option for reducing the high rate of exclusionary discipline and addressing disparate treatment of minority students.

Author

• Michaela Benson-Goldsmith, University of Nebraska Omaha