Restorative [In] Justice: Why Schools Struggle to Implement Restorative Justice for Black Girls

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Restorative [In] Justice: Why Schools Struggle to Implement Restorative Justice for Black Girls
Language: English
Authors: Alaina Neal-Jackson
Source: Texas Education Review. 2025 13(1):132-151.
Availability: Texas Education Review. Available from: University of Texas at Austin, George I. Sanchez Building, 1912 Speedway, Austin, TX 78705. Tel: 512-471-7551; Fax: 512-471-5975; e-mail: txedreview@utexas.edu; Web site: https://review.education.utexas.edu/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 20
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools
Secondary Education
Descriptors: Restorative Practices, African American Students, Females, Discipline, Theory Practice Relationship, Fidelity, Student Participation, Educational Practices, Longitudinal Studies, Adolescents, High School Students
Geographic Terms: Michigan
ISSN: 2329-5724
Abstract: As the nation reckons with the role that the over-expansion of zero-tolerance discipline policies has played in the disproportionate disciplining of Black girls and Black children as a whole, restorative justice (RJ) has taken center stage in the quest for change. This paper explores the tensions that arise when moving from restorative justice theory to practice. Drawing upon data from a critical ethnographic study, and employing intersectionality as a theoretical frame, this paper explores how one school struggled to implement a genuinely restorative model for Black girls based on their inability to engage, with fidelity, the foundational principles of restorative justice. Without a firm grasp of and commitment to the core principles of RJ, the restorative process in this school was coopted such that it reproduced the inequities it was hoping to disrupt and functioned as zero-tolerance discipline by another name.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1463726
Database: ERIC
Description
Abstract:As the nation reckons with the role that the over-expansion of zero-tolerance discipline policies has played in the disproportionate disciplining of Black girls and Black children as a whole, restorative justice (RJ) has taken center stage in the quest for change. This paper explores the tensions that arise when moving from restorative justice theory to practice. Drawing upon data from a critical ethnographic study, and employing intersectionality as a theoretical frame, this paper explores how one school struggled to implement a genuinely restorative model for Black girls based on their inability to engage, with fidelity, the foundational principles of restorative justice. Without a firm grasp of and commitment to the core principles of RJ, the restorative process in this school was coopted such that it reproduced the inequities it was hoping to disrupt and functioned as zero-tolerance discipline by another name.
ISSN:2329-5724