Restorative Justice as a Doubled-Edged Sword: Conflating Restoration of Black Youth with Transformation of Schools

Abstract

The anchoring weight of slavery continues to ground schools by design and implementation, 151 years after the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. Empirical literature is rife with evidence that Black and Brown youth are penalized more frequently and with greater harshness than their white, suburban counterparts for the same offenses (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Welch & Payne, 2010), to the point where Triplett, Allen, and Lewis (2014) describe this phenomenon as a civil rights issue. The authors examine how a constellation of school-sanctioned discipline policies have connected the legacy of slavery with punishment. In order to curb burgeoning suspension rates that disproportionately target Black youth, schools and grassroots organizations have adopted various tiers of Restorative Justice (RJ). This article draws upon existing theoretical frameworks of Restorative Justice to discuss new approaches and directions, as well as the limitations of its hyper-individualized applications in K-12 schools. Finally, the authors assess two case studies that aim to transform schools and community engagement by refocusing restorative philosophy on the ecological conditions of student contexts, rather than the presumed intrapsychic symptoms habitually ascribed to youth behavior and Black culture.

Investigating Racial Bias and Attribution Error in Grading Student Performance

“…Based on our research ndings, it is crucial to emphasize that disparities in factors such as race, student attitudes, pre-performance information, expectations, and backgrounds can lead teachers to make incorrect assumptions about the underlying reasons for a student's performance (Daneshzadeh & Sirrakos, 2018; Riegle-Crumb & Grodsky, 2010). Importantly, a teacher's interpretation of a student's performance, whether viewed as stemming from internal or external factors, has the potential to shape the teacher's future expectations for that student, potentially in uencing a shift in grading standards (Peterson, et al, 2016).…”

Racial Equity Policy That Moves Implicit Bias Beyond a Metaphor for Individual Prejudice to a Means of Exposing Structural Oppression

“…Particularly when it came to discipline, racially minoritized communities pointedly argued that when conflicts occurred involving minoritized youth, White adults’ judgment was routinely seen as normal and justified. TISD thus fit a mold of districts amply described in the research (Clarke, 1961; Daneshzadeh and Sirrakos, 2018; Hartman, 1997; Hilliard, 1997; hooks, 1995; Jayakumar, 2007) in which ubiquitous White norms continue to “foster the permanence of White supremacist ideologies in our society” (Daneshzadeh and Sirrakos, 2018, p. 10). In these districts, Whiteness defines normalcy in school discipline, curriculum, instructional practices, and simultaneously marginalizes Blackness in all those dimensions of school life (Daneshzadeh and Sirrakos, 2018; Hartman, 1997).…”

School restorative justice, restorative discipline rather than punishment: a systematic review

“…In addition, it has been and is frequently used in the judicial field to resolve conflicts in people who commit crimes. In the educational field, the RJ is constituted as an approach aimed at maintaining school discipline as an alternative to the traditional punitive approach [2]; as a pedagogical strategy for a healthy school coexistence, resolving conflicts and restoring broken relationships [3]; as a leadership approach, organized to improve school coexistence respecting races and customs [4].…”