Restorative Practices: Impact on School Discipline

Abstract

For years traditional discipline methods, such as Zero Tolerance policies, have not done anything to lower suspension and recidivism rates and have continued to widen the gap on consequences handed out between white and minority students. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of implementing Restorative Practice into schools in place of traditional methods – what effect would such an intervention have over a four-week period. The study seeks to answer the research question, how does Restorative Practices effect school discipline? The goal is to analyze the discipline data for a group of eight at-risk students and see if there has been a positive or negative change in discipline data after the four-week treatment period.