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Journal of School Violence
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Restorative Justice: Pedagogy, Praxis,
and Discipline
Brenda E. Morrison a & Dorothy Vaandering b
a Centre for Restorative Justice, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
b Faculty of Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland, ,
Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador,
Canada
Available online: 24 Jan 2012
To cite this article: Brenda E. Morrison & Dorothy Vaandering (2012): Restorative Justice: Pedagogy,
Praxis, and Discipline, Journal of School Violence, 11:2, 138-155
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Journal of School Violence, 11:138–155, 2012
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ISSN: 1538-8220 print/1538-8239 online
DOI: 10.1080/15388220.2011.653322
Restorative Justice: Pedagogy, Praxis,
and Discipline
BRENDA E. MORRISON
Centre for Restorative Justice, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University,
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
DOROTHY VAANDERING
Faculty of Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland
and Labrador, Canada
In the ongoing effort of designing school contexts in support of
proactive discipline, a range of practices and theoretical frame-
works have been advanced, from behaviorist approaches to social
and emotional learning. This article describes the theory and
practice of restorative justice with the aim of defining this dis-
tinctive paradigm, in comparison to other forms of discipline,
as one that uniquely emphasizes social engagement over social
control. In so doing, a responsive regulatory framework supports
pedagogy, praxis, and discipline such that relational school cul-
tures are nurtured; wherein, behavior is understood in social
context, individuals are recognized as being part of a social web of
relations, and building, maintaining, and repairing relationships
become priorities. This focus on developing rich and embedded
relational ecologies finds its strength through nurturing motiva-
tional bonds of belonging that support individual development
and social responsibility. This is distinct from formal institutional
responses that rely on systems of institutional sanctions to leverage
compliance.
KEYWORDS restorative justice, school discipline, social engage-
ment, social responsibility, motivation, responsive regulation, rela-
tional ecologies
Received July 13, 2011; accepted December 18, 2011.
Address correspondence to Brenda E. Morrison, Simon Fraser University, School of
Criminology, Centre for Restorative Justice, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6,
Canada. E-mail: brendam@sfu.ca
138
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Restorative Justice 139
Violence is most often framed and regulated in moral and legal terms, ask-
ing: How evil is this action, and how much punishment does it deserve?
(Gilligan, 2001; Zehr, 2002a). This response to violence has intensified and
become the normative paradigm for a wide variety of disruptive incidents
across a range of institutions, including schools (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera,
2010). Employing finely tuned, prescribed levels of punishment for a range
of harmful incidents has resulted in little understanding of the root causes
of the harmful behaviors, and their far-reaching effects.
In the context of schools, this punitive regulatory framework has been
employed in the form of exclusionary practices (e.g., office referrals, sus-
pensions, and expulsions) for decades (Children’s Defense Fund, 1975) but
has escalated through zero tolerance policies implemented by local, state,
and federal levels of regulatory bodies in the United States. In particular,
school shootings and the events of 9/11 led to significant policy develop-
ment that ramped up the use of exclusion in schools. In making no mention
of preventative programming, the U.S. Gun Free School Zones Act (Gregory
& Cornell, 2009), encouraged the growth of school discipline codes that
prescribed the use of suspensions and expulsions as the primary way to
maintain orderly schools. As a result, zero tolerance became the de facto
policy for dealing with school discipline in the United States (Blumenson &
Nilson, 2002; Gregory & Cornell, 2009; Gregory et al., 2010). Though evi-
dence indicates clearly the ineffectiveness and damaging impact of these
exclusionary practices (American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance
Task Force, 2008; Gregory & Cornell, 2009; Martinez, 2009), they continue to
be used in many schools—at all levels and to varying degrees—as a means
for social control (Gregory et al., 2010).
Alternatively, a restorative justice (RJ) framework, grounded in relational
pedagogy, praxis, and discipline, employs a responsive regulatory approach
that identifies social engagement as the key element for creating rich moti-
vational ecologies that nurture bonds of belonging. Using this framework,
violence (and other behaviors having negative results) is considered in the
context of understanding what happened, listening to the needs of those
who have been most affected, and responding to the harm done (Zehr,
2002b). This article details RJ as a means for developing relational, engaged
institutional cultures, which early research indicates as a promising praxis
for safe and caring schools.
WHAT IS RESTORATIVE JUSTICE?
Restorative justice is best understood as a distinct praxis for sustaining
safe and just school communities, grounded in the premise that human
beings are relational and thrive in contexts of social engagement over con-
trol (Morrison, 2011; Pranis, 2007). This foundation supports three broad
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140 B. E. Morrison and D. Vaandering
leverage points that allow for improved relational interaction in general and
more specifically when injustice/harm occurs. Rather than focusing on exter-
nal sanctioning systems (rewards and punishment) as a motivational lever,
RJ focuses on the motivational lever of relational ecologies, embedded in
the value base of internal sanctioning systems. Thus, the power dynamics of
institutional cultures are reversed, rather than relying on the “hard” power
of the institution as a motivational lever, the “soft” power of relational ecolo-
gies affords the power of influence. Traditionally, institutions maintain their
power base by investigating what law and/or code of conduct has been
broken, who did it, and what punishment is deserved. Relational ecologies
examine what happened, who has been affected and their needs, and how
to repair the harm done to the extent possible (Zehr, 2002b). The process
necessarily includes those closest to the harm and those closest to the com-
munity affected. This is distinct to current institutional practice, wherein the
decision-making is often left to third parties; typically, the problem, and
the person, is sent down the hall, away from the relational dynamics in
which the problem arose. This process robs students of a rich opportunity
for collective problem solving, learning, and growth. Instead they learn that
other “people of power” solve problems. In the context of courts, the justice
system has been characterized as stealing conflict from those most affected
(Christie, 1977). A key component of RJ is emotional engagement, such that
there is reason for emotion. This contrasts with the suppression of emotion,
that typifies courts and schools (Morrison, 2007; Sherman, 2003). The aim
is to build positive affect (empathy, interest, and excitement) and discharge
negative affect (anger, humiliation, fear, and disgust). This is distinct from
most institutional responses, which focus on establishing the facts, with little
focus on the social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions that make up the
rich motivational ecologies within the lives of individuals and communities.
The broad aim of RJ is for educational policy and practice to be more
responsive and restorative to the needs and concerns of the school com-
munity (Morrison, 2007). The approach creates school communities that
move beyond the predominant paradigm of regulatory formalism, to a
paradigm that is more responsive because it entails giving back the harm
or wrongdoing to the community most affected and enables a process for
the community to address the harm, through nurturing the human capacity
for restitution, resolution, and reconciliation. Through restitution the harm
is repaired; through resolution the community reduces the risk of the harm
reoccurring; through reconciliation comes emotional healing. These three
restorative actions mirror the defining premises of RJ, which differentiate it
from conventional regulatory practices (see Table 1).
This paradigm shift requires a willingness to disturb the traditional
institutional dynamic of schools, moving from a one-size-fits-all regula-
tory framework to one that recognizes a range of motivational postures
in schools: commitment, capitulation, resistance, disengagement, and game
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Restorative Justice 141
TABLE 1 Juxtaposition of Punitive and Restorative Regulatory Practices
Regulatory practice Punitive Restorative justice
Outcome sought Punishment of offender
(retribution)
Reparation of harm
(restitution)
Decision-making process Third-party (prescriptive) First-party (resolution)
Regulatory mechanism Reason over emotion
(adversarial)
Reason for emotion
(reconciliation)
Motivating source External (control; rule based) Internal (engagement;
values based)
playing (Braithwaite, 2009). These postures reveal that traditional institu-
tional practices can generate defiance, undermining an individual’s capacity
and willingness to cooperate in core facets of social life, from family and
school to work and governance. Within a formalized regulatory system of
social control, the implicit belief is that clear rules and laws within the archi-
tecture of the system, backed up by clear and consistent sanctions, will
elicit the desired behavior. The basic assumption is that students are ratio-
nal actors, who will uniformly respond to codes of conduct and laws; yet,
there is now clear evidence that traditional sanction-based rational actor
models ignore the science of how individuals, groups, and society function
(Braithwaite, 2009). In contrast, the deeper social and emotional foundation
of relational ecologies moves the application of RJ away from a disciplinary
measure of control to a pedagogy and praxis of engagement, development,
and integrity at both individual and institutional levels.
RJ VALUES AND PROCESSES
RJ has been defined in terms of a range of processes and values.Interms
of values, RJ is “about healing rather than hurting, moral learning, commu-
nity participation and community caring, respectful dialogue, forgiveness,
responsibility, apology, and making amends” (Nicholl, 1998, p. 7). In terms
of a process, a Delphi method of agreement defined RJ as “a process
whereby all the parties with a stake in a particular offense come together
to resolve collectively how to deal with the aftermath of the offense and its
implication for the future” (Marshall, 1997, as cited in McCold, 1998, p. 19).
It has been conceived as a third model, or new “lens” (Zehr, 1990)—a way
of getting off the seesaw between welfare and punishment, incorporating
virtues of both. Like the welfare model, RJ is strong on support; like the
punishment model, RJ is strong on accountability. It is the relational process
of marrying support with accountability that differentiates RJ from the other
models. As summarized by Tyler’s (2006) research on rule breaking:
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142 B. E. Morrison and D. Vaandering
Sanctioning-based models, which dominate current thinking about man-
aging criminals, have negative consequences for the individual wrong-
doer and for society. It is argued that greater focus needs to be placed
on psychological approaches whose goal is to connect with and acti-
vate internal values within wrongdoers with the goal of encouraging
self-regulatory law-related behavior in the future. (p. 307)
The value base can generally be described as promoting values of harmony,
while not sacrificing security; indeed, the foundation of healthy communities
and RJ is security with care (Elliott, 2011).
Braithwaite (2002) organized RJ values into three categories: constrain-
ing values (e.g., respectful listening, equal concern for all stakeholders,
accountability, respect for the fundamental human rights); maximizing val-
ues (e.g., restoration of human dignity, relationships and communities,
emotional restoration and the restoration of freedom, compassion, peace,
a sense of duty as a citizen); and emergent values (e.g., remorse, apology,
censure of the act, forgiveness and mercy). At an operational level, it is the
strength of the process to draw out the values that is the foundational core
of restorative praxis; in that, values are those goods that our theories, rules,
and decisions work to bring about in the world (Brincat & Wike, 2000).
The most common processes of RJ include victim offender mediation,
community/restorative conferences, and peacemaking circles. While each
process emerged in a different ontological context, each is grounded in
relational values and ecologies. As these practices took root in schools,
whole school models have developed that recognize RJ as being a paradigm
for nurturing relational school cultures impacting all aspects of pedagogy,
praxis, and discipline (Hopkins, 2011; Morrison, 2007; Vaandering, 2009).
Victim–Offender Mediation/Reconciliation
The mediation/reconciliation tradition of RJ influenced a range of practices
within schools, and is rooted in community-based Mennonite initiatives that
emerged in the early 1970s in Canada (Peachey, 1989). Within this tradition, a
range of practice has emerged in schools: Discipline That Restores (Classen &
Classen, 2008), Restorative Discipline in Schools (Stutzman-Amstutz & Mullet,
2005), and Educating for Peacebuilding (Bargen, 2010). This tradition builds
on the principles of RJ as described by Zehr (1990, 2002). This wide-ranging
process focuses on (a) harms and consequent needs; (b) addresses obliga-
tions resulting from those harms; (c) uses inclusive, collaborative processes;
(d) involves those with a legitimate stake in the situation; and (e) seeks
to put right the wrongs (Stutzman-Amstutz & Mullet, 2005, pp. 25–26). A
distinctive aspect of this process has been its influence on peer mediation
programs, such that the RJ facilitator is often a peer within the school.
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Restorative Justice 143
Community/Restorative Conferencing
A restorative conference is a process whereby all parties to a harm (includ-
ing support people and professionals) come together (with the support of a
facilitator) to talk about what happened, the impact, and how to make things
right. Emerging in the late 1980s in New Zealand, the process is loosely
based on Maori tradition of families gathering to address conflict and harm
between families. From New Zealand, this process was adapted further into
a scripted model when it was adopted by the New South Wales police ser-
vice in Australia (McDonald, Hyndman, Moore, O‘Connell, & Thorsborne,
1995). While the facilitators were initially police officers, this evolved into
use by other professionals, such as school counselors. Since the 1990s, RJ
conferencing in schools has been developed in many different countries
to address a wide range of behaviors from property damage, drug-related
incidents, persistent class disruption, assaults, and bullying (Morrison, 2007).
Based on the conferencing framework, Wachtel (2004) developed a contin-
uum of responses that move from informal to formal restorative practices:
affective statements, affective questions, small impromptu conferences, large
group circles, and formal conferences. Costello, Wachtel, and Wachtel (2010)
subsequently developed their model to include classroom management.
Peacemaking Circles
Grounded in traditional indigenous practice in North America, Circles are
used in a variety of contexts. Peacemaking circles developed from talk-
ing circles, and include intentional structural elements: ceremony, a talking
piece, a facilitator or keeper, guidelines, and consensus decision-making.
Circles aim to create a space where participants are safe to be their most
authentic self, share stories, and develop understanding of self and oth-
ers (Pranis, 2005; Pranis, Stuart, & Wedge, 2003). Circles can be used for a
range of activities in schools: lessons, morning meetings, community build-
ing, developing emotional literacy, promoting healing, peacemaking, and
peace-building (Boyes-Watson & Pranis, 2011; Reistenberg, 2011). The use
of circles shifts RJ from a reactive process to a proactive process. Unique
to this model, a circle process explicitly includes participants defining the
values at the beginning of the process. The values that emerge most con-
sistently are: respect, honesty, trust, humility, sharing, inclusivity, empathy,
courage, forgiveness, and love (Pranis et al., 2003). Boyes-Watson (2008)
noted that the ritual and ceremony of circle are important and that there are
“non-verbal, almost unconscious forms of collective communication through
which we develop and affirm shared understanding ... [as] ways of act-
ing out the structure of our relationships with one another” (p. 80). Circles
have emerged as an effective process to lever the rich social and emotional
ecologies of individuals and communities.
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144 B. E. Morrison and D. Vaandering
Whole-School Models
While the aforementioned processes first began to be used as a disci-
plinary response, whole-school approaches followed, often drawing on the
framework of a public health triangle characterized by primary (univer-
sal), secondary (targeted to specific individuals and groups), and tertiary
(intensive) practices (see Morrison, 2007, for review). Primary restorative
practices involve the entire school community and aim at establishing a
values ethic, as well as skill base, for developing relational ecologies and
resolving differences in respectful and caring ways. Secondary restorative
practices address specific behaviors that disrupt the harmony and social rela-
tions of classrooms (e.g., problem-solving circles), hallways (e.g., corridor
conferences) and playgrounds (e.g., peer mediations). Tertiary restorative
practices are the most intensive, often responding to serious harm, and
involve all those affected (including families, professionals, fellow students,
and others affected) in a face-to-face restorative justice process.
A whole-school relational framework has been developed based on
these three leverage points outlined by the healthcare model (Morrison,
2007). The primary or universal practices—the broad base of the triangle—
involve reaffirming relationships through developing a value-based ethos
that builds social and emotional skills. The secondary or targeted practices,
forming the middle layer of the triangle, involve repairing relationships
through facilitated and supported dialogue. The tertiary or intensive prac-
tices that respond to a specific case—the small top of the triangle—involve
rebuilding relationships through intensive facilitated dialogue that includes
a broad social network. Morrison (2007) concludes with a broader vision
that characterizes RJ and responsive regulation, not just as a mechanism for
discipline but also as a mechanism to achieve social justice across all school
outcomes, including safety, health, and academic.
Thus, what has evolved in schools adopting a restorative justice frame-
work is a clearer awareness of the social and emotional foundation of the
paradigm, specifically that human beings are relational and justice is under-
stood broadly as “honoring the inherent worth of all and is enacted through
relationship” (Vaandering, 2011, p. 324). This is in line with other social justice
definitions such as that of Shriberg, Wynne, Briggs, Bartucci, and Lombardi
(2011), who applied social justice to school psychology and identified it as
an overarching framework centered around: (a) ensuring that all individu-
als are treated with respect and dignity and (b) protecting the rights and
opportunities for all. This foundation has been further developed as a frame-
work for identifying and building the links behind key (educational) ideas
(McClutskey, 2011) and democratic citizenship (Bickmore, 2011). Specifically,
RJ values, skills, and practices create a distinct institutional space that respond
not just to incidents of aggression and harm, but to all relationships occur-
ring in schools, such as an administrator’s interactions, policy decisions, a
teacher’s pedagogy and curriculum, as well as professional and institutional
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Restorative Justice 145
development (see Hopkins, 2011; Morrison, 2007). The praxis of RJ engages
the rich ecologies of individuals’ lives, at the social and emotional level of a
community of care, be it the classroom, playground, school, or neighborhood.
This is a significant paradigm change that can be characterized as a shift away
from being a rule-based institution to a relationship-based institution, or from
being an institution whose purpose is social control to being an institution
that nurtures social engagement (Elliott, 2011; Morrison, 2011; Zehr, 2005).
THEORETICAL PARADIGM
At a conceptual level, early proponents of RJ in the judicial context recog-
nized the paradigmatic change required in a reconceptualization of justice,
human nature, and behavior. Early RJ theorists, such as Bianchi (1994) and
Zehr (1990, 2005), examined what it is to be human within social spheres of
life, as defined by institutions. For example, Bianchi (1994) encapsulated the
need to rethink the use of rules within institutions, when he stated: “Rules
are like water. We cannot live without them, but they do not constitute life to
us” (p. 28). In the development of his theory, Bianchi (1994) stated that jus-
tice, like truth, is not just there, but must be “made effectual” (p. 26). In this
way, justice is not a noun, but a verb, an action that recognizes people as
humans to be honored rather than objects to be controlled (Buber, 1958;
Freire, 2005). Zehr (2005) reiterated this and highlighted justice as a state of
“right relationship” and RJ as a “journey to belonging” (Zehr, 2002a). Bianchi
(1994) and Zehr (1990, 2002a) defined laws and rules as serving people to
protect and encourage relationships and relational cultures. This contrasts
with the more predominant view that positions justice as people serving
rules and laws in order to create desirable behavior (see also Downie &
Llewelyn, 2008).
In the context of schooling and education, this premise can be under-
stood when students are valued as human beings to be honored rather than
objects to be controlled, and underpins the shift from social control to social
engagement. Though this may appear to be a logical starting point and the
desired starting point of contemporary education in general, the institutional
reality is much different. For example, Harber and Sakade (2009) concluded
that globally schools are predominantly authoritarian institutions whose orig-
inal purpose of control and compliance are deeply embedded in schooling
and are highly resistant to change. They drew on Green’s (1990) comprehen-
sive historical study of the origins of formal schooling in which he argued
that across the Western world “the task of public schooling was not so much
to develop new skills for the industrial sector as to inculcate habits of confor-
mity, discipline, and morality that would counter the widespread problems
of social disorder” (p. 59). Thus, approaches employed as responses to
behavior reinforce social control and education as compliance.
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146 B. E. Morrison and D. Vaandering
Restorative justice, through its focus on reconnecting people to each
other and highlighting inherent relational qualities, emphasizes social
engagement, which also includes addressing violence and aggression in
schools. When this occurs, education becomes a practice of freedom and
hope (Freire, 1998; Giroux, 1988; Greene, 1988; Hooks, 2003) and discipline
regains its original meaning and is understood as a means for nurturing
human capacity rather than a method of managing others. Thus, a relational
ecology has emerged as the normative theoretical framework for understand-
ing and practicing restorative justice, with early models of practice driving
further theoretical development.
Underpinning this normative theoretical framework are a number of
explanatory theories, with no one theory solely explaining the causal
mechanisms by which RJ processes are intended to work. These included
reintegrative shaming theory (Ahmed, Harris, Braithwaite, & Braithwaite,
2001; Braithwaite, 1989), procedural justice theory (Tyler, 2006), defi-
ance theory (Sherman, 1993), and self-categorization theory (Turner, Hogg,
Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). For example, Tyler’s (2006) work indi-
cates that individuals care about justice because of concern over social status,
in that justice communicates a message about status. Employing Tyler’s
model, high levels of cooperative relations within institutions have been
found when individuals feel a high level of pride in being a member of the
collective and a high level of respect within the collective. Thus, status is
important for understanding the social dynamics of conflict and cooperation
within schools. These findings resonate with the National Research Council’s
report (Moore, Petrie, Braga, & McLaughlin, 2002), which concluded that
concerns over social status are central to understanding and preventing
deadly school violence. The Council recommended that: “Young people
need some places where they feel valued and powerful and needed—this
is part of the journey from childhood to adulthood ...Holding spaces and
pathways open for them may be an important way of preventing violence”
(Moore et al., 2002, p. 336).
RJ shows itself to be a promising practice in creating spaces where
the pathway that defines a young person’s life can be reopened through
addressing the power and status imbalances that affect young people’s lives,
including the aftermath of violence (Boyes-Watson, 2008; Morrison, 2007,
2011).
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE: EVIDENCE WITHIN A SAFE SCHOOL
FRAMEWORK
Educators across the globe have been and are currently engaged in the
praxis of RJ—the action and reflection of people upon their world in order
to transform it (Freire, 2005). Such praxis requires a long-term commitment
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Restorative Justice 147
and regular assessment of changes in order to confirm that a paradigm shift
is actually taking place, and in what form. The evidence base emerging out
of this shift, in its many forms, is gradually influencing policy and practice in
a range of countries such that RJ is becoming more widely known (Morrison,
2007, 2011).
Since the emergence of RJ in schools in the 1990s, a variety of stud-
ies have been conducted in various locations internationally to substantiate
the evidence base of RJ in schools (see Morrison, 2007, for review). For
example, one of the first studies to emerge examined the use of RJ con-
ferences to address serious incidents in schools, such as assaults, on a
case-by-case basis. The findings showed that participants (victims, offend-
ers, supporters, and administrators) were generally satisfied with the process
and outcomes achieved, including the reduction of repeat offending behav-
ior (Cameron & Thorsborne, 2001). Subsequently, with the emergence of
whole-school approaches, studies measured school-wide outcomes, such as
the reduction of exclusionary practices, including office referrals, suspen-
sions, and expulsions. For example, in Minnesota, Stinchcomb, Bazemore,
and Riestenberg (2006) found that in one school district, over a 3-year period
(1997/98–2000/01), behavior referrals for physical aggression in an elemen-
tary school were reduced from 773 to 153, suspensions in a junior high
school were reduced from 110 to 55, and in a senior high school suspen-
sions dropped from 132 to 95. A large-scale study in Scotland beginning
in 2004 (McCluskey et al., 2008) focused on RJ as a means for improv-
ing social relationships, respect, responsibility, and mutual engagement. The
qualitative findings, through observations and interviews, showed that when
implementing RJ, schools had very different starting points, aims, and strate-
gies. Despite these differences, in elementary schools the perception from
members of the school community was that RJ helped to create a calmer,
more positive atmosphere, and helped students develop conflict resolutions
skills. In secondary schools the impact was more sporadic and varied, and
institutional change happened more slowly.
McCluskey and colleagues (2011) carried out a systematic review of the
Scottish findings, identifying three operational approaches to the use of RJ
in schools. The first, and most successful, were approaches that emphasized
“whole school ethos building, encompassing preventative and educative
aims at all levels, but also operating as a response to wrongdoing, conflict
or when relationships have broken down” (McCluskey et al., 2011, p. 109).
A second approach, with a limited range of success, occurred when RJ
was implemented by “particular individuals responsible for student behavior
(e.g., guidance counselors, behavior support educators, etc.) as a response to
wrongdoing, conflict or when relationships have broken down” (McCluskey
et al., 2011, p. 109). A third approach uses RJ solely as a response for seri-
ous incidents that typically would result in criminal charges. This approach
results in “positive outcomes for participants involved in the RJ process, but
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148 B. E. Morrison and D. Vaandering
has little impact on the school as a whole, including the reduction of future
crises” (McCluskey et al., 2011, p. 109).
More recently, RJ has been included in systematic comparative stud-
ies examining a range of antibullying strategies (Howard et al., 2010).
Restorative justice was identified as both a proactive and reactive strategy
and was rated by educators as a moderately to highly effective strategy for
developing a restorative ethos to address bullying behavior in schools.
While these studies and others have found that RJ does address a range
of behaviors that compromise the experience of safety at school, and helps
to build a positive school ethos and climate, the sustained development of
engaged institutional praxis is piecemeal, inconsistent, and often ad hoc
(McCluskey et al., 2011; Morrison, 2007; Vaandering, 2009). Much more
research and development is needed in all areas of praxis, from defining
the paradigm shift to ongoing formative, processes, and outcome evalua-
tion, using both qualitative and quantitative data at micro- and macro-levels
of analysis.
Underlying the need for systematic research and development, there is
a pressing need for conceptual clarity in characterizing and operationaliz-
ing the paradigm shift that RJ embodies within schools. Early RJ pioneers
(Bianchi, 1998; Braithwaite, 1989; Zehr, 1998) identified the need to shift
attention from a focus of an individual’s aberrant behavior within institutions
to addressing relational needs within communities; however, this has not
been an easy shift for institutions entrenched in policies and practices that
value control and compliance over relational ecologies that nurture growth
and well-being. As a result, while many schools are seeing and experienc-
ing the value of RJ, conflicting philosophies and theories readily co-opt, or
hinder it from taking hold. While educators readily embrace the RJ premise
that relationship is more important than the behavioral incident, they are
reluctant to let go of the option to punish and exclude. McCluskey et al.
(2011) identified this reluctance to let go of the power to punish as the
“default setting” that is “still pervasive and powerful ... [as] punishment is
an essential symbol of power and teacher ‘strength’” (p. 112). In identifying
the paradox of the success of RJ alongside the reality that exclusionary prac-
tices are maintained, they asked, “is it possible that restorative approaches
represent at one and the same time ... both a threat and a potential solu-
tion?” (McCluskey et al., 2011, p. 115). Bickmore (2011) echoed this in her
peace-building dialogue study that examines RJ approaches as well as other
dialogic approaches to addressing conflict, in the question, “Why in spite
of research supporting democratic, peacebuilding pedagogies, are they so
rarely employed?” (p. 15).
If social engagement is key to the success of designing school contexts
in support of proactive RJ discipline, what needs to be done to further this
agenda? Recent reviews continue to emphasize the call of early RJ advocates.
For example, it is important to facilitate clear discussion amongst students,
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Restorative Justice 149
parents, educators, support personnel, academics, and researchers regard-
ing the deep foundational principles of RJ that provide conceptual clarity
and a recognition of the inherent worth of all people (Reistenberg, 2011;
Vaandering, 2009). A commitment to whole-school implementation must be
embedded within a framework that honors the well-being and intercon-
nected nature of all (Hopkins, 2011; Morrison, 2007; Vaandering, 2011).
Morrison (2007) outlined the paradigm shift required in her responsive
and restorative regulatory pyramid that includes four faces: (a) institutional
vision to empower responsive policy development, (b) relational practices
to empower individual change and development, (c) behavioral evidence
to empower response decision-making, and (d) professional bridging to
empower institutional change and development (Morrison, 2007). Hopkins
(2004, 2011) exemplified this in practice through her restorative classroom
and just school activities that highlight the role of relationship. When
this whole-school philosophical context is acknowledged, then pedagogy,
praxis, and discipline can be assessed for enacting these socially engag-
ing principles. As more of these explicit practices are identified, employed,
and understood within such a framework, social control that seeks to sup-
port a past educational agenda of control and compliance may lose its grip
and social engagement that supports an educational agenda of democratic
freedom and community responsiveness may emerge more fully.
In navigating this paradigm shift, RJ advocates and practitioners must
be able to clearly differentiate RJ from other safe school initiatives that
have been found to be effective, or risk that RJ be co-opted or sidelined
by dominant institutional frameworks (Elliott, 2011). Of particular signifi-
cance is the ability to differentiate RJ from school-wide positive behavior
supports (SWPBS) and social and emotional learning (SEL), two evidence-
based approaches identified in the 2010 U.S. Capitol Hill briefing on safe
schools (AERA, 2010), both of which have similarities and differences to the
practice of RJ.
The SWPBS framework is similar to RJ in that it aims to develop
integrated systems of support for students and adults at the school-wide,
classroom, and individual student/family levels (Horner, Sugai, Todd, &
Lewis-Palmer, 2005). However, RJ differs because SWPBS is a behavior-
ist, rule-based approach, with a focus on external sanctioning systems.
While traditional sanctioning-based systems focus on the balance between
benefits and burdens (rewards and punishments), SWPBS favors rewards
over punishment in bringing about behavioral compliance. At the proac-
tive level, a whole-school system communicates behavioral expectation and
rules, rewarding compliance. When intervention is required, a function-
based strategy is employed (Crone, Hawken, & Bergstrom, 2007; Horner
et al., 2005). “The goal is to establish a positive school and classroom climate
in which expectations for students are predictable, directly taught, con-
sistently acknowledged, and actively monitored” (Osher, Bear, Sprague, &
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150 B. E. Morrison and D. Vaandering
Doyle, 2010, p. 50). Such behaviorist approaches are rooted in paradigms of
social control and order, derived from basic assumptions of human behavior.
Clark (2005) explained that, “a society’s conceptualization of ‘human nature’
determines both how its people behave and their perceptions about justice”
(p. 163). She illustrated how societies that see humans as naturally compet-
itive, selfish, and requiring behavioral training, rely mainly on rewards and
punishment. Societies that see humans as naturally prosocial, cooperative,
and striving to contribute rely more on apology, forgiveness, and restitution.
While behavioral strategies focus on the development of fair and just exter-
nal sanctioning systems, RJ strategies focus on the development of internal
sanctioning systems, leveraging the rich value-based ecologies of individuals
and communities that minimizes harm and maximizes reparation. The for-
mer values social control and order, while the latter values social harmony
and engagement.
SEL with its emphasis on self-awareness, self-management, social
awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (see
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2003) may
appear to be more closely aligned with RJ. However, responsibility for
behavior continues to lay with the individual student outside of their
social context, potentially ignoring and displacing institutional and commu-
nal responsibilities for change. This positioning emphasizes the self and
self-discipline for the purpose of personal gain as indicated by Durlak,
Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, and Schellinger (2011), who stated that the
foundation of SEL rests on the premise that competent people have the abil-
ity “to generate and coordinate flexible, adaptive response to demands and
to generate and capitalize on opportunities in the environment” (Waters &
Sroufe, 1983, p. 80, as cited in Durlak et al., 2011, p. 406). This individual,
adaptive emphasis assumes the need to comply with social demands and
capitalize on environmental opportunity for personal growth and develop-
ment. In so doing, the values of harmony and engagement are once again
displaced.
Osher et al. (2010) indicated that the next generation of evidence-based
disciplinary systems should include a blend of elements of SWPBS and SEL
in hopes of being more beneficial. They stated, “[SEL] provides few inter-
ventions to help educators manage disruptive behavior. Conversely, SWPBS
programs ... are less likely to help students develop social and emotional
competencies related to self-discipline” (Osher et al., 2010, p. 53). When
combined, however, we contend that the negative impact of social con-
trol policies, handed down by institutional authorities, on students will not
be addressed, and in the long run will not provide the solution desired.
Restorative justice, with its emphasis on engagement, provides interventions,
while encouraging the development of social and emotional competencies.
At its core it honors individual self-worth, but also nurtures relational, class-
room ecologies that provide spaces for students to gain appropriate status
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Restorative Justice 151
within a web of relationships that exists amongst all participants in a school
community. This more comprehensive approach does not ignore harmful
behavior, but shifts the focus from managing behavior to honoring dig-
nity and humanity, through relational practices that focus concurrently on
individual and community well-being and responsibility.
CONCLUSION
Educators eager to see young people thrive have worked long and hard at
creating school contexts that are safe and caring in order to provide students
with environments that are conducive to learning. Though some progress
has been made, an individualistic perspective set on controlling the behav-
ior of others has been reinforced because of a focus on individuals, specific
incidents, and responding at the abstract level of the institution. Restorative
justice in its development in schools over the past two decades seeks a sig-
nificantly different purpose for education and practice of schooling, one that
moves away from education as training to one that is much closer to the
Latin root of education—educere (to lead out). Social engagement with its
emphasis on human beings as worthy, interconnected, and relational creates
a school context where students are respected within the institution’s main
practices of pedagogy and praxis. Discipline within this social and emotional
ecology then draws on the leverage points of internal sanctioning, personal
and community ownership for harmful incidents, and finding reason for
emotion. This distinctive RJ approach encapsulates the benefits for individ-
uals that Osher et al. (2010) identified as important elements of SWPBS
and SEL, but achieves much more by cultivating connections, reconnecting
broken lines of communication, and providing a space for individuals to
discover who they are within a nurturing relational community.
COMPETING INTERESTS
The authors have no competing interests to disclose.
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