A Story Legitimating the Voices of Latino/Hispanic Students and Their Parents: Creating a Restorative Justice Response to Wrongdoing and Conflict in Schools

This article chronicles how a group of university researchers initiated a research and professional development project called Culture of Care at a large high school in the Denver Metropolitan area. After implementation, Latino/Hispanic students and their parents maintained the project. It was the charge of Latino/Hispanic parents to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline by introducing restorative justice practices into the classroom as a way of responding to wrongdoing and conflict. The purpose of the project was to change teachers' practices, as well as involving these students and their parents as primary informers in the process. Conceptually, the project was based on an ethic of care, the theory of culturally responsive pedagogy, and the principles of restorative justice practices in schools. Data were collected in the form of focus group interviews to create "testimonios" to legitimate the voices of the participants. Data were analyzed based on the typologies of authentic caring and aesthetic caring. Findings indicate that the high school needed to change, particularly in classrooms, and that tension in the school was based on deficit theorizing by teachers. Based on these findings, a recommendation is made to build the capacity of teachers and their students to build caring relationships by using restorative justice practices to respond to wrongdoing and conflict. With the support of the Latino/Hispanic parents, this recommendation was turned into action.