“Positive Discipline Doesn’t Sound Like Discipline”: Experiences with Restorative Justice Implementation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Restorative justice is an increasingly common discipline policy, as schools grapple with historic inequities in traditional exclusionary discipline. This mixed-methods study examines the implementation of restorative justice in 28 intentionally diverse charter schools in five jurisdictions in the U.S. Qualitative findings suggest a range of factors at play during implementation including capacity, buy-in and how intent is interpreted. They are reflected in our quantitative results where we find that suspension rates in the sample schools are lower in only three out of five jurisdictions and that reductions may serve to decrease racial/ethnic gaps in only two out of five jurisdictions.