You Belong Here: Cultivating Community for Black Students Using Restorative Justice Practices

While numerous works have been written on black achievement, the Discipline Gap and the School to Prison Pipeline, there is little scholarship to elucidate the ways in which they may be interconnected. By making discipline more about community accountability and respect and less about punishment and exclusion, I hypothesize that a restorative philosophy may increase students’ sense of school bonding; a significant variable that moderates the relationship between discipline and achievement. Drawing on three qualitative empirical studies over the course of three years, this dissertation argues that restorative practices, an educational intervention intended to address the Discipline Gap, and the School to Prison Pipeline may also have implications for the achievement motivation, particularly for black students. In studies one and two, I evaluate the obstacles to implementing restorative practices in the school environment evidenced by interviews with restorative practices facilitators, trainers, and consultants as well as teachers and school administrators centered in Southeast Michigan. I note that most significant impediments to shifting school culture were both cultural and structural in nature. They include (1) the failure to conceptualize restorative practices as a philosophy, (2) the reality that many teachers and staff members prefer punitive measures (3) selective implementation (4) funding issues and (5) lack of administrative support. In study three, I conduct a case study of restorative classrooms at Spring Lake, a Southeast Michigan High school. Student interviews reveal that restorative justice practices have tangible benefits outside the realm of discipline namely by increasing (1) students’ sense of support at school, (2) the development socio-emotional learning and soft skills and (3) academic self-confidence and academic motivation. I discuss the salience of race and social justice issues in restorative practices implementation and argue that any effort to introduce restorative justice practices to the school environment must include a race and social justice lens. I conclude with recommendations for whole-school application or restorative justice practices and offer directions for future research.PhDSociologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/171376/1/tclinton_1.pd