Abstract
Restorative Justice in Urban Schools: Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline is a breath of fresh air and a much-needed critical evaluation of restorative justice practices. This book examines urban schools as sites ‘conjoined with and complicit to our current peculiar institution’ (p.24) and assesses whether and how restorative justice, used as a philosophy and a practice—not merely as a program—contributes to changing the punitive paradigm of zero tolerance policies. It understands the School-to-Prison Pipeline as the ‘phenomenon in which students who are repeatedly suspended and expelled have an increased likelihood of dropping out of school and ending up in the justice system’ (p.3). As such, the book is an important contribution for those interested in the movement to end and/or reverse the phenomenon of mass incarceration.
Wadhwa uses an ethnographic methodology called ‘portraiture,’ in which portraitists counter the tendency toward negativity by searching for ‘goodness’ in their research setting. Learning about portraiture ethnography methodology was inspiring to me. There is a general tendency in urban ethnography and urban sociology to focus on crime, poverty, and segregation in the representation of African American communities, which emphasizes the deficits and negative aspects of these communities. Through the examination of restorative justice in urban schools, Wadhwa does a wonderful job of offering an alternative approach, i.e. a strength-based approach, which shows the ‘goodness’ of building and sustaining urban communities through the use of restorative practices.
The author chose two sites in the Boston public schools: Bridge and Equity high schools. She spent more than 100 hours between the Fall of 2009 and Spring of 2010 at these sites, observed and participated in 35 and 25 circles at each site respectively, sat in various classrooms, and conducted interviews with 38 participants (5 teachers, 4 administrators, 1 school resources officer, and 8 students at Bridge; 5 teachers, 3 administrators, and 11 students at Equity) and had informal conversations (p.35). Suffice to say that owing to her extensive ethnographic research, the book is a major contribution to the critical evaluation of restorative justice practices.
Through the use of extensive quotes and brilliantly detailed and nuanced descriptions of circles, the reader is easily hooked. Wadhwa shows how teachers use their own circles, involving role-play, for professional development. She portrays the magic that can happen when students mend and build relationships, for instance, when she quotes Marisol, a student: ‘I want to shout out Natasha. I know [that] we are not friends and have not gotten along in the past, but in class you do what you have to do so that we can get our work done, and I really respect that, so I want you to know that’ (p.65). The author also highlights the challenges of getting teenagers to comply or the occurrence of persisting disrespectful behavior, as is the case for Luis, another student she quotes: ‘I didn’t want to hear what I did. I know what I did, and they kept bringing it back up, so I got up and left…I said, “Just give me my days, and I’ll go home”’ (p.78). Wadhwa further introduces the concept of the ‘restorative discipline feedback loop.’ The loop starts with talking circles that provide a safe space for students and teacher to coexist, and build bonds and connections—a proactive step in enhancing ‘community.’ These talking circles lead to healing circles, which she considers to be responsive circles where students reflect on a problem or a relationship, and make a commitment to repairing harm. Circles ultimately lead to following up on agreements.
It is encouraging to read how white teachers are willing to engage in discussions on race, while also giving a voice to students to question the distribution of power along racial lines. These are the kinds of innovations in restorative practices that start to address historical and structural harms, rather than only individual harms.
In addition, the author shares a poignant observation in chapter 6, I am not extraordinary: Janet Connors and the role of community members in restorative justice. Janet is a restorative justice practitioner, a single mother whose son was murdered, and an activist in the civil rights movement. She epitomizes that those with the problems are closest to the solutions—a prevalent idea in the movement to end mass incarceration. Through Janet’s narrative, Wadhwa rightfully challenges not only the concept of community but also who should participate in the restorative justice movement, because ‘communities are rich, untapped reservoirs, filled with individuals typically overlooked, anonymous people who can often impact more than credentialed professionals’ (p.110).
Since portraitists focus on authenticity rather than validity (p.35), the author provides what I think are great nuances with regard to the burden on teachers to implement restorative justice initiatives given the lack of infrastructure, meanwhile highlighting that ‘whether or not restorative justice practitioners in schools disrupt the pipeline for individual students remains to be seen; the stories in these passages suggest that restorative justice increases opportunities to intervene in student academic trajectories but does not always improve student behaviors’ (p.153).
This book convincingly shows that restorative justice practices can be built from the ground up. Wadhwa proposes that there is a deeper, more pervasive need to heal students’ relationships with the institution of schooling. I would add that there is a need for the American society to heal itself for its failure to support basic institutions, such as education for communities that are historically oppressed. Overall, the book reminds us that schools and prisons should be re-imagined and transformed, if not abolished and replaced with emancipatory educational spaces. There is an opportunity to make a difference and I hope this book falls in the hands of those who are able to advance restorative practices, one way or another. I am enthused about portraitist ethnography and encourage more urban ethnographers to follow Wadhwa’s lead. Because, as Wadhwa shows in her research, ‘at their most effective, restorative practices [in urban schools] not only keep students accountable for their behaviors but also create space for young people to critically analyze the political and economic structures that contribute to their behaviors as well as the very phenomenon the practice is being used to counter—the school-to-prison pipeline’ (p.149).