Restorative practice in education: what does research tell us?

By Rosie Chadwick

There’s been a flurry of recent studies of restorative practice in education, including two systematic reviews and a policy brief summarising what’s known about implementation and outcomes in US schools.

Strong themes from the findings are that restorative practice in schools can mean many things: we need to get much better at precisely defining and describing the approaches being used.  Implementation needs to be well-supported. We also need more robust and longer-term evaluations that look both at outcomes and at how faithfully practice was implemented.

The policy brief[1] describes five models of ‘mis-implementation’ that can cause restorative initiatives to falter or limit their potential. The five models are:

  1. mandated top-down mis-implementation, running counter to the emphasis on fair process, voice and collaborative decision that are the hallmarks of restorative practice.

  2. narrow mis-implementation that see restorative practice as just about changing student behaviour rather than something that needs to involve the whole community.

  3. colour blind and power blind mis-implementation that focuses on individuals while ignoring the systemic and structural inequalities that affect student wellbeing.

  4. ‘train and hope’ mis-implementation involving initial staff training but little or no on-going training and support.

  5. under-resourcing, short-term mis-implementation that fails to recognise the time, commitment and resources needed to implement restorative practice fully.

For the authors (Anne Gregory and Katherine R Evans) avoiding these pitfalls means:

  • ensuring restorative practice is principle-based and aligned with core restorative values.

  • taking a comprehensive approach embracing staff as well as student behaviours, policies and procedures, teaching methods, curricular decisions and schoolwide decision-making.

  • emphasizing equity, including by explicitly identifying opportunity gaps and challenging disparities in discipline.

  • developing contextually sensitive implementation plans that reflect the strengths and needs of the setting and evolve as circumstances change.

  • approaching roll-out strategically combining top-down and bottom-up approaches and building a strong base of champions and leaders while also respecting the critiques and questions of colleagues who are not convinced.

  • creating long-term implementation plans focused on sustainability and professional support, incorporating ongoing professional development (coaching, peer mentoring, learning communities etc).

There’s much here to reflect on and aspire to.

[1] The Starts and Stumbles of Restorative Justice in Education: Where Do We Go from Here? | National Education Policy Center (colorado.edu)