Restorative_justice

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Restorative Justice workshop Research = = = Restorative Justice workshop = 02-09 **
 * Brownsville Middle School

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Alapattah program Main goals School safety Competency development
 * Funded through grant 47 percent
 * Too many kids being arrested in MDCPS in general.
 * Simple misdemeanor offenses can be handled by authority of State Attorney.
 * Overrepresentation of AA youth in juvenile justice
 * Civil citation is a related initiative. City of Miami did it at one time with Chief Darlin.
 * AA graduation rate MDCPS 37 pc.
 * 25 pc AA parents have a high school diploma
 * Child who commits felony keeps that on their record.
 * We need to do "The Nanny" in many parents' homes.
 * Same problems as in the 70s.
 * Bring in some food for the kids to eat.
 * Accountability
 * Non-violence
 * Whole community
 * Can't wait for MDCPS to do it.
 * It often takes parents to reach parents. On visits to homes, we often see alcohol and drug abus.
 * Movement started in the 70s
 * Survey kids: like that they are listened to. Want an alternative to fighting. Even the worst kids want to do right.

Process Conference with people trusted, involved Have to come up with a solution Ask writers to write it down Solution developed by student and everyone else in the circle Circles

Togetherness projects

Parents who come together and talk about students who have conflicts often exchange phone #s

Big in Chicago, Baltimore, easy schools

Student commentary 1 Losing contact with students

2 Wants to establish restorative justice programs at all county disciplinary sites Project Impact: takes kids on site 3 Resource: Tom Bender, Parent Academy Alternatives to suspension Parent involved

4 Take away club privileges as a way to pressure kids

5 Losing kids 17, 15 year olds in 8th grade class No art, band, home ec

6 Constantly attacking and criticizing each other No community spirit Parents ready to beat and criticize Illiterate Criticizing parents Contempt when they speak about their parents FCAT does not provide for students (Internalized self-hatred) Many students on medication (drugs?) 7 Paragraph why late today Band depleted Magnet programs only for academically strong v kids who need it. You to go church? Do you interrupt your pastor? This is my church. Write down everything that you were saying to each other. Exchange Use those students to end conflict Give extra credit to students who help others improve.

8 Kids sell drugs, parents look the other way because money is coming in.

Film Student-developed plan takes less energy to to implement

Classroom discipline Beginning of the year discipline situation Why do we need to be quiet? Arrange forum where students who like the class tell the other students why they do and how the others are interrupting. Write about what's not working

Bullying Confrontation allows bullies to change. Person allowed to say, "Please don't make fun of me. I struggle." Bullies have a tendency to struggle out of school.

Suggestions for future workshops Team warmup activity where people introduce each other and their challenges as per the circle conferences. Team discussion of implementation ideas. Play out an example, mock conference.

Research
Conflict resolution education and antisocial behavior in U.S. schools: A meta-analysis

by Wendy M. Garrard, Mark W. Lipsey Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies Abstract

This meta-analysis examines more than twenty-five years of evidence to determine whether participation in school-based conflict resolution education (CRE) contributes to reduced antisocial behaviors among youth in kindergarten through twelfth grade in U.S. schools.

Evidence from thirty-six studies, representing 4,971 students, shows improvements in antisocial behaviors in CRE participants compared to control groups (Effect Size = .26), with larger effects observed during midadolescence ( ES = .53) and early adolescence ( ES = .22) compared to middle childhood ( ES = .06).

Improvements in antisocial behavior outcomes attributable to CRE are significant in both practical and statistical terms and are similar for different CRE program approaches.

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The National Association of School Psychologists has this position:

Promoting anti-violence initiatives that include prevention programs for all students.

NASP advocates the use of a multi-level model of school violence prevention such as discussed in the federal document, Safe, Supportive, and Successful Schools: Step by Step.

At the most general level, interventions include school-wide violence prevention programs.

These activities encourage the positive emotional development of students and teach them to use non-violent means to resolve their personal conflicts.

Peacemaking, peer mediation, and conflict resolution programs are natural bridges between interventions that focus on individual change and those seeking to change the ecology of the school.

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Restorative Justice: Reconceptualizing School Disciplinary Theory and Practice

by Michele Villarreal Hamilton Dissertation submitted for degree of Doctor of Education. University of the Pacific. Stockton, California. 2008

ABSTRACT - EXCERPTS:

....restorative justice practices, specifically Circles, provide students with an opportunity to resolve conflicts through dialoguing, problem-solving, building relationships and reflecting on thier behavior.

Used in conjunction with traditional disciplinary practices, Circles can provide schools with an additional tool to teach appropriate behavior.

Thirteen participants were interviewed during a week long visit to West Valley High School (identified by pseudonym).

The data for this study revealed the following research findings:

(a) the school employed a restorative approach to discipline which included the use of Circles as a compliment to traditional disciplinary procedures,

(b) the Circle process at WVHS led to the elimination of further behavioral infractions among Circle participants,

(c) the Circle process provided students with increased opportunities for conflict resolution and learning,

(d) the Circle process provided a forum for students' to discuss personal issues unrelated to the original conflict, and

(e) the Circle process had a positive impact on student behavior and the participants' perception of school climate relative to student discipline.

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School Bullying and Restorative Justice: Toward a Theoretical Understanding of the Role of Respect, Pride, and Shame

by Brenda Morrison, Australian National University

ABSTRACT

The adverse effects of school bullying and victimization have been well documented; yet, there has been little theoretical development in understanding these heterogeneous behavior patterns.

This study integrates three theories that support the practice of restorative justice in responding to school bullying: Scheff's theory of unacknowledged shame, Braithwaite's reintegrative shaming theory; and Tyler's procedural justice theory.

Specifically, the aim is to test the constructs of shame management (shame acknowledgment and shame displacement) and group value (pride, respect, and emotional group value) in explaining differences across four bullying status groups: nonbully/nonvictim, victim, bully, bully/victim.

The results reveal different, but predictable, patterns of social and emotional disconnection from school across these groups.

The importance of being emotionally intelligent when addressing bullying behaviors is discussed.

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Shame and the Social Emotion

By Thomas J. Scheff

Brief Excerpt:

By shame I mean a large family of emotions that includes many cognates and variants, most notably embarrassment, humiliation and related feelings such as shyness that involve reactions to rejection or feelings of failure or inadequacy.

What unites all these cognates is that they involve the feeling of a threat to the social bond.

That is, I use a sociological definition of shame, rather than the more common psychological one (perception of a discrepancy between ideal and actual self).

If one postulates that shame is generated by a threat to the bond, no matter how slight, then a wide rage of cognates and variants follow: not only embarrassment, shyness, and modesty, but also feelings of rejection or failure, and heightened self-consciousness of any kind.

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According to ** Scheff **, acknowledging ** shame ** for what it is discharges the ** shame **. Recognizing ** shame ** prevents anger, which is one of the triggers that begins the recursive loop.

Acknowledging ** shame ** also creates a situation where it is possible to feel pride, pride at repairing or preserving the social bond.
 * Unacknowledged ** ** shame ** creates the feeling trap and results in some predictable consequences and symptoms, for both the person and their social bonds….

But one of the more important effects of ** unacknowledged ** ** shame ** is low self-esteem

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Researching the Prospects for Restorative Justice Practice in Schools: The "Life at School Survey" 1996-9 by Valerie Braithwaite ; Eliza Ahmed ; Brenda Morrison ; Monika Reinhart Abstract -- excerpts: School communities are increasingly turning to restorative justice practices to manage disorder.

Punitive sanctions such as suspension or expulsion are used only as last resorts as school policies toward deviance change to reflect the growing tide of a “whole of school” approach.

A “whole of school” approach involves developing a school culture in which the domination or exploitation of others is unacceptable, thereby reducing violence and bullying behavior.

Survey respondents were 1,401 Canberra children between the ages of 9 to 13 years and 978 of their parents.

Children completed questions about themselves and their school experiences.

The analysis focused on discovering how relevant and malleable shame management skills were in reducing school violence; whether school programs could strengthen a student’s shame management skills; and if parents would be willing to accept a restorative justice practice that relied on shame management.

The analysis found that the foundation of a restorative justice approach is the “whole of school” culture in which bullying and violence are viewed by the collective as unacceptable behavior that carries sanctions.

It was also discovered that parental practices were of utmost importance in developing a sense of responsibility for one’s actions.

Parents who denied that their bullying child intended to harm the victim conveyed the message that it was not necessary to accept responsibility.

As such, restorative practices in schools are appropriate and effective because they function to bring together the family so that treatment for the group dynamics can be achieved.

This is in contrast to punitive sanctions, which are only reactive to offenses and do not try to repair the harm.

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