Teacher Perspectives on Effective Restorative Practice Implementation: Identifying Programmatic Elements That Promote Positive Relational Development in Schools

Background/Purpose: Exclusionary discipline practices have been shown to have negative impacts on the development of youth, and Black and Brown youth in particular due to disproportionate usage of these hazardous techniques. In response, the Just Discipline Project (JDP), uses a holistic school transformation initiative to reduce the overreliance on exclusionary discipline in schools serving students of color. To date, the program has shown success in reducing suspension use, improving school climate, enhancing student achievement, and reducing racial disparity rates. The purpose of this study presented here was to understand how teachers experienced the implementation of the model during the first year pilot and in particular identifying the factors teachers believed to be most strongly associated with the positive school-wide outcomes.

Methods: Data was collected through 11 semi-structured qualitative interviews with teachers and staff at the pilot school. Interview participants were selected through maximum-variation purposive sampling to gain insight from a variety of perspectives; varietal factors included number of years teaching, grade level, subject matter expertise, self-identified race and gender. Interviews were held at the end of the year, lasted approximately 45-60 minutes, and were conducted by one or two members of the research team. Interviews were transcribed, read, and analyzed by all team members. Thematic analysis through multiple consensus coding rounds was used to identify themes present in the data.

Results: Overall, respondents noted that two practices associated with Just Discipline were particularly instrumental in the successful implementation of the program at the pilot site. First, teachers shared that the full-time JDCM staff member, who is an MSW and has a similar demographic background to many of their students, was a major benefit in supporting students emotionally, enhancing teachers’ efficacy, and helping students and teachers resolve conflicts without resorting to violence or other harms. Additionally, teachers felt that the development of a student leadership team that was also trained in restorative practices and positive school climate strategies was instrumental in the program’s success and reach within the school. In particular, these leaders were able to both resolve conflicts and also provide meaningful emotional support to peers in schools.

Conclusions/Implications: While broader efforts at studying restorative practices have produced encouraging but sometimes mixed results, particularly with regard to academic outcomes, findings here capture what teachers believe to be the key leverage points in restorative practice effectiveness in their schools. Findings here are important to the field: to date very little literature captures the essential role of full-time practitioners in the work, and studies giving close attention to student leadership roles are extremely scarce. Across these mechanisms, it is clear that building strong relationships is critical to schools’ restorative practice implementation efforts, and the work must include the provision of adequate human resources to make the initiatives effective and to transcend the specific duties of classroom staff.