Search

Discussions around transparency in open science focus primarily on sharing data, materials, and coding schemes, especially as these practices relate to reproducibility. This fairly quantitative perspective of transparency does not align with all scientific methodologies. Indeed, qualitative researchers also care deeply about how knowledge is produced, what factors influence the research process, and how to share this information. Explicating a researcher’s background and role allows researchers to consider their impact on the research process and interpretation of the data, thereby increasing both transparency and rigor. Researchers may engage in positionality and reflexivity in a variety of ways, and transparently sharing these steps allows readers to draw their own informed conclusions about the results and study as a whole. Imposing a limited, quantitatively-informed set of standards on all research can cause harm to researchers and the communities they work with if researchers are not careful in considering the impact of such standards. Our paper will argue the importance of avoiding strong defaults around transparency (e.g., always share data) and build upon previous work around qualitative open science. We explore how transparency in all aspects of our research can lend itself toward projecting and confirming the rigor of our work.

The current case demonstrates the complexities of utilizing Youth Court as a restorative practice in an urban high school, by focusing on the complexities it presents for one student in particular. In this case, there are reasons why Youth Court clearly is not working at this particular school site as intended. However, more importantly for leadership preparation, the case surfaces dilemmas of cultural difference, teacher preparation, leadership preparation, and school policy that leaders must address prior to restorative implementation in order to ensure sustainable restorative practice moving forward.

Qualitative training rarely acknowledges the role of emotions in both data collection and analysis. While bracketing emotions is an important part of reflexivity, emotions are both a source of data...

Drawing on data from a year-long multi-case ethnography of three secondary urban public schools implementing restorative practices, the current piece examines how principals negotiate restorative practices despite conflicting pressures to maintain order and compel obedience. I frame my inquiry through Sergiovanni’s (2000) concept of “systems” in the “lifeworld,” asking whether principals use restorative practices as systems in service of cultural transformation or merely as a replacement for suspension. Findings suggest tensions between principals’ purposes for implementing restorative practices and the pressure they feel to maintain an image of “school order” and “toughness” in the eyes of internal and external stakeholders. I close with recommendations for research and practice. I also make some preliminary recommendations for principal preparation.

Increasingly, district leaders are turning to a community-based alternative to suspension called restorative practices (RP’s). While they correlate with lower suspension rates, Black, Latinx, and N...

Social and emotional learning research tends to focus on results for K12 students but requires major shifts in mindsets for teachers. Lustick et al. found that teachers who run community circles must negotiate complex questions around their own boundaries and exert a significant amount and novel kind of emotional labor. Sustainable implementation means recognizing, honoring, and supporting this labor; it represents a significant shift compared to traditional notions of teacher professionalism. A literature review uncovered 16 SEL interventions and compared them on the basis of teachers' role. The chapter asked: How are teachers recognized in the literature in terms of design and treatment of integrity? How is the unique labor of SEL—beyond formal instruction—recognized in the literature and in teachers' practice? The authors draw on existing research and interviews with six teachers across elementary, middle, and high school grade levels in one urban district in the US South that was implementing a districtwide SEL program.

Suspension rates for students of color are higher than for White students, even in schools that utilize alternatives to suspension like restorative practices. This study draws on data from a year-long multicase ethnography that sought to elucidate why such disproportionality prevails in schools that use restorative practices. This article focuses on one finding: that the individuals hired to be restorative coordinators were consistently young, non-White staff from the same neighborhoods as their students. The majority-White faculty and administration greatly depended on these coordinators to bond with, contain, and compel obedience from students of color.

Implicit in the discourse on school discipline reform is the belief that utilizing positive school discipline practices, as opposed to suspension and classroom removal, will necessarily reduce the racially disproportionate representation of black and brown students in school discipline outcomes. Yet even in schools that utilize positive school discipline approaches, racial disproportionality persists; students of color continue to be disciplined more often and more harshly than their white peers, even when controlling for gender, socioeconomic status, and behavior. Framed by Vavrus and Cole’s concept of the socioculturally contextualized disciplinary moment, this article argues for an approach to positive discipline that incorporates the tenets of culturally relevant education. Implications for policy, research, and practice are discussed.

Foucauldian theory serves as a natural frame for critiquing school discipline policies, the harsh, punitive policies used to correct misbehaviour in public schools (Devine, 1996).1 School surveilla...

School leaders seeking to implement restorative justice discipline practices in diverse urban schools have a series of subtle and crucial decisions to make that are omitted in the literature on alternatives to suspension. The current chapter examines one group of Black teachers from a larger study of schools using restorative practices. In interviews and observations, these teachers demonstrated Du Bois’s theory of Double Consciousness; they recognized both the institutional dynamics of the school’s discipline policy and the ways in which enactment of that policy ultimately replicated traditional racial inequality. They repeatedly challenged restorative theory and practices in terms of their relevance to students whose everyday reality involved police violence, community violence, and impoverished living conditions. While praising its potential as a foundation for communication and trust building, they perceived its implementation as a way to restore obedience for the student and restore order in the school. While stemming from one group of teachers in one school setting, my findings beg important questions for school leaders, researchers, and policymakers concerned with school discipline reform.

Since 2011, the federal government has become increasingly interested in stemming the disproportionate suspension of students of color (as well as the overall spike in suspensions and expulsions nationwide). The Supportive School Discipline Initiative, a joint venture launched in January of 2014 by the Department of Education (ED) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), published a set of documents titled the Climate Guidance Package. The Initiative’s website frames this package as a means of support for school districts. This frame neglects to acknowledge that while racial disproportionality in discipline has been a phenomenon since school desegregation, federal law mandated zero-tolerance policies (Anfinson et al. Int J School Disaffect 7(2):5–20, 2010) and funneled money into police presence in schools that has not as yet been reallocated to preventative programs (Losen et al. The school to prison pipeline. NYU Press, New York, 2013). This chapter is a Critical Discourse Analysis of the Supportive School Discipline Initiative, a set of policy documents released to school leaders to encourage school-discipline reform. These documents discursively position school leaders and teachers as entirely responsible for the harmful effects of harsh disciplinary policies like zero tolerance, when in fact these policies were a federal response to violence in schools and hundreds of thousands of dollars are still being funneled into paying school safety officers. This allows governments and districts to punish schools for not reducing their school suspension rates without providing adequate funds to implement alternatives.

Purpose Part of a larger multicase ethnographic research project, this case study examines the experience of transgender youth and their teachers at a school that uses restorative practices as an alternative to school suspension. Design/methodology/approach The current study focuses on interviews from one transgender student, her teachers, and her administrators. Findings Taken together, these interviews expose complex mechanisms through which transphobia undermines an ostensibly democratic discipline practice intended to promote social justice. The restorative concept of “accountability” framed staff’s efforts to create a more gender-inclusive school, but this frame inadvertently placed the burden of inclusion largely on the transgender student, as staff expected her to educate peers and teachers and enforce gender inclusive practices. Social implications Restorative practice trainings should be integrated with trainings on inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals. Originality/value Existing research examines the impact of zero tolerance policies on transgender students. This study demonstrates that even when alternatives to zero tolerance policies are in place, teachers and administrators easily slip holding transgender youth accountable for their own safety. A school-wide commitment to “inclusion” does not negate the need for educating staff and students about LGBTQ identities and inclusion.