Restorative justice in schools: a New Zealand example

Background Many responses to students whose behaviour is considered unacceptable at school fail because they treat young people as isolated individuals and do not operate in the context of the community of people who know and care about them. In some parts of the world there is a move towards exploring how to support such students by moving away from retributive justice and the primacy of assigning blame and punishment to an alternative means of preventing, managing and controlling behaviour by establishing partnerships with students' home communities. One such approach is restorative justice.

Purpose To examine how the process of restorative justice can make a positive response to unacceptable behaviour.

Design and methods This paper draws together some of the literature associated with this approach, with a case example of restorative justice in action. It illustrates how community norms and values can help to encourage more socially appropriate behaviour. This example comes from a New Zealand Māori context and an intervention undertaken with ‘Wiremu’, a young man whose behaviour was of concern at home, in school and in the local neighbourhood.

Results The intervention operated through traditional Māori protocols to shift the focus away from those affected by Wiremu's actions, and from Wiremu himself, on to the whole community in order to focus on ‘putting things right’ between all those involved in the wrongdoing. It shows how traditional community conflict resolution processes were able to address and resolve tension, make justice visible and more productive, and support the restoration of harmony between Wiremu, those upset by his wrong-doing and the collective.

Conclusions Introducing restorative practices in schools is not straightforward. It requires considerable forethought and prior planning, negotiation and deliberation. Restorative justice requires that schools do not own or completely control the process, but have to learn to be responsive to families and local voluntary community groups who are, potentially, important sources of additional support for schools in addressing student behaviour that is seen as problematic.     

Restorative Practice in New Zealand Schools: Social development through relational justice

This article proposes that restorative justice practices (RJPs), as used in New Zealand schools, are better understood as an instrument of social development than a behaviour management practice. Concerns about the achievement of Māori students are relocated, from an individualised psychological and pedagogical problem to an interdisciplinary context of historical and social development. Social constructionist theory is suggested as a lens through which RJPs in schools may be seen as the intentional production of respectful social relationships, rather than as behaviour management. A restorative process has the productive capacity to restore healthy relational functioning, both for those who have been offended against and those who have offended. It is argued that the primary function of restorative justice in schools is not about resolving specific conflicts, but rather, about the production and maintenance of respectful relationship, which is the antithesis of colonised relationship. Such a position reflects accountability on a communal, rather than individualised basis, and accords with recent moves in the United Nations Development Programme to look at Human Development as building agentive capacity.     

恢复性司法视野中的刑事被害人

被害人学理论的迅猛发展动摇了传统的犯罪观念,凸显了法律对个人尊严和人权的保护。而我国被害人保护相关法律没有与国际接轨,借鉴恢复性司法的理念能使刑事被害人在整个刑事司法过程中的权利得到有效地保护。     

The quest for cognitive justice: towards a pluriversal human rights education

This paper turns to the work of the Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos and explores how a set of concepts he developed over the years may constitute valuable tools in the task of decolonising and pluriversalising Human Rights Education (HRE). Informed by decolonial theory, Santos highlights that the struggle for global social justice is inseparable from the struggle for cognitive justice, namely, the recognition of epistemic diversity. This paper makes a contribution to the efforts that view the pluriversalisation of HRE as inextricable parts of the wider task of decolonising knowledge and education and struggling for social justice.     

论恢复性司法在未成年人犯罪中的应用

近年来,未成年人犯罪呈上升趋势,这一问题已经引起全社会的高度关注和重视。对未成年人犯罪的惩戒,核心价值不在于报应和震慑,解决问题的关键在于弱化、消除犯罪行为对社会造成的不良影响,侧重于对未成年人的身心矫治。检察机关运用刑事和解、暂缓起诉、社区矫正等“恢复性司法”制度处理未成年人犯罪,取得了良好的社会效果。运用“恢复性司法”处理未成年人犯罪,既有赖于立法的支撑,更有赖于司法的践行。     

Voluntary organizations and the contribution to social justice in schools: learning from a case study

Partnerships are seen as vital to the functioning of many social institutions and the contribution that the private and voluntary not‐for‐profit sector organizations can make to the provision of statutory services is particularly valued. The Church of England Children’s Society Genesis project worked for nearly 5 years in one urban, secondary school with a remit to promote inclusion. Despite much recorded good work, Genesis was not continued after its contract ended. The school had a series of head teachers and was in special measures for part of the period, but key problems centred around the extent of the project’s contribution to the school’s core business and the absence of a positive management of the multi‐professional project by the school. The evaluation examines ways of proceeding which are of relevance to more complex projects. The paper also reviews the place of voluntary and non‐profit making organizations in meeting current challenges to collaborative, multi‐agency working and proposes a more robust, directive, and managerialist approach to make the most efficient and effective use of the resources and expertise of voluntary and statutory agencies (Inter‐agency Czar and Stalinist environment!). Genesis has gone on to work more successfully in six further schools having absorbed the messages of the evaluation of this first enterprise.     

Health promoting schools: a New Zealand perspective

In the last 20 years the health promoting schools movement has gained momentum internationally. Without strong national leadership and direction its development in New Zealand has been ad hoc and sporadic. However, as the evidence supporting the role of health promoting schools in contributing to students' health and academic outcomes becomes more robust, their potential can no longer be ignored. This paper sets out to provide an overview of the state of the health promoting schools movement in New Zealand and examines the national framework and process in the light of the international literature.     

Alternative education and social justice: considering issues of affective and contributive justice

This article considers the ways in which three alternative education sites in Australia support socially just education for their students and how injustice is addressed within these schools. The article begins with recognition of the importance of Nancy Fraser’s work to understandings of social justice. It then goes on to argue that her framework is insufficient for understanding the particularly complex set of injustices that are faced by many highly marginalised young people who have rejected or been rejected by mainstream education systems. We argue here for the need to consider the importance of ‘affective’ and ‘contributive’ aspects of justice in schools. Using interview data from the alternative schools, we highlight issues of affective justice raised by students in relation to their educational journeys, as well as foregrounding teachers’ affective work in schools. We also consider curricular choices and pedagogical practices in respect of matters of contributive justice. Our contention is that the affective and contributive fields are central to the achievement of social justice for the young people attending these sites. Whilst mainstream schools are not the focus of this article, we suggest that the lessons here have salience for all forms of schooling.     

从罗尔斯的正义原则看我国教育制度的非正义性

从罗尔斯的平等自由原则和机会的公正平等原则出发,可以推演出教育制度的正义原则。然而从经费政策、教师政策、课程政策和高考制度四个方面分析可以看出,我国教育制度存在着非正义现象。分析教育制度的非正义性,是为了更好的建设或完善,使其在构建社会主义和谐社会建设中发挥更大的正面功能。     

浅析我国教育公正视域下个体的均衡发展

由于历史原因,中国的经济发展一直处于一种不平衡的状态,所以导致了中国的教育发展也长期不平衡。受此影响,个体的均衡发展受到制约,教育发展不均衡导致教育不公平现象日益凸显,影响社会稳定。人的全面均衡发展是教育发展的理想追求,是教育均衡发展的终极关怀,体现了教育内部公正的要求。因此,在教育公正环境下促进个体的均衡发展,是当前教育改革和发展面临的重要问题。     

The mediating effect of trust on the dimensionality of organisational justice and organisational citizenship behaviour amongst teachers in Malaysia

Abstract

The swelling discourses on organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) have diffused into areas of management and organisational research. The existing literature encapsulates that trust will mediate the relationship between the three dimensions of organisational justice: procedural justice, distributive justice and interactional justice and OCB. Based on the literature discussions, several hypotheses were proposed and conceptual framework was formulated. A total of 411 teachers had responded and participated in the survey. The collected data were analysed using Smart Partial Least Square software. Vigorous two-stage analytical procedure was adopted. The statistical results indicated that trust significantly mediates the relationship between organisational justice and OCB as well as the dimensions of organisational justice and OCB with various degrees of mediating effects. These findings have provided new insights in the organisational behaviour discipline and shed light on trust’s mediation in the relationship of organisational justice and OCB.     

Well-being in schools: Chinese and New Zealand approaches

Educational Research for Policy and Practice - Educational authorities across countries are concerned to promote the well-being of their children. We discuss the approach that two systems, China...     

Disproportionate over-representation of Indigenous students in New South Wales government special schools

A significant gap exists in the Australian research literature on the disproportionate over-representation of minority groups in special education. The aim of this paper is to make a contribution to the research evidence-base by sketching an outline of the issue as it presents in Australia’s largest education system in the state of New South Wales. Findings from this research show that Indigenous students are equally represented in special schools enrolling students with autism, physical, sensory, and intellectual disabilities, but significantly over-represented in special schools enrolling students under the categories of emotional disturbance, behaviour disorder and juvenile detention. Factors that might influence the disproportionate over-representation of Indigenous children and young people are discussed, and based on these observations, some practical implications for policy and practice are provided.     

论穆勒的经济正义思想

穆勒以个人权利的实现和保障作为正义的第一要义,把“功利优先”作为统摄正义的第一原则。他认为,正义的中心内容和根本基础就是功利;正义的本质是以功利原则为基础的个人权利;正义的目标是最大多数人的最大幸福。他还提出政府适度干预对实现经济正义有重要作用。这些思想对于研究当前中国社会的经济正义问题仍有重要的借鉴价值。     

School leadership and social justice: Evidence from Ghana and Tanzania

Headteachers working under conditions of severe hardship in Africa face tremendous challenges, often exacerbated by a sense of hopelessness and lack of agency to effect improvements within their school. This paper focuses on notions of leadership agency and ‘social justice’ within an African educational context, with a specific focus on the school level, and reports on a small-scale research project involving primary headteachers in Ghana and Tanzania engaging with action research in order to bring about changes which they feel will benefit the quality of pupil learning. The study presents some positive impacts generated by the headteachers’ actions and indicates ways in which these actions illustrate developments in areas of ‘social justice’ related to fairness, equity, recognition, and redistribution. The findings suggest that empowering headteachers through the use of action research can enable them to act creatively and positively to benefit the quality of education offered to the pupils within their schools.     

Leadership,partnerships, and organizational development: exploring components of effectiveness in three full-service community schools

Full-service community schools are viewed as an approach to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for underserved student populations. The realization of these goals, however, is not guaranteed. According to Richardson’s (2009) research-based model of highly effective community schools (HECS), the effectiveness of full-service community schools depends on 3 interrelated components: leadership, partnerships, and organizational development. This qualitative case study uses the HECS model to examine different levels of effectiveness among 3 full-service community schools in an urban district in the eastern United States. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of Richardson’s model for practice and research.     

关注个人权利 罗尔斯正义理论的提出与依归——读《正义论》

罗尔斯正义理论具有一种普遍的个人权利观,人与生俱来存在的差异性为正义二原则的提出提供了依据。在整个正义体系中,关注的是群体中每个人的境况即个人权利,人是出发点,也是归宿。     

Full service and extended schools,disadvantage, and social justice

Despite successive waves of school reform, the English education system, like many others, continues to be characterized by marked inequalities of outcome. These seem to be related to factors in students’ family, community and wider societal contexts that schools traditionally have been powerless to tackle. This paper argues, however, that schools can intervene in these contexts by offering a wider range of services and activities to children and adults under the aegis of ‘full service and extended’ approaches. The paper outlines how these approaches have evolved in England and elsewhere, and reviews the evidence for their effectiveness. It concludes that their current limited impacts could be enhanced if the work of schools were aligned with wider social strategies. Such a move, it suggests, raises questions about how school systems are governed and about what kind of society schools are expected to help build.     

Promoting a Just Education: Dilemmas of rights,freedom and justice

This paper identifies and addresses some dilemmas to be faced in promoting educational projects concerned with human rights. Part of the difficulty that human rights education initiatives must cope with is the way in which value has been historically conferred upon particular notions such as freedom and justice. I argue here that a just education must grapple head‐on with the conceptual dilemmas that have been inherited and refuse to shy away from the implications of those dilemmas. To do this I address the fundamental fictions upon which rights are based and view those fictions as nonetheless useful for opening up the ethical terms of human rights education. With reference to the work of Arendt, Lyotard and Levinas, I conclude that the real potential of human rights education lies in its capacity to provoke insights that help youth live with ambiguity and dilemma, where freedom, justice, and responsibility cannot be dictated to them, but rather involve tough decisions that must be made in everyday life.