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Discipline Policies In Urban Educational Contexts: Approaches, Barriers, And Restorative Justice, Elizabeth Balch-Crystal

#CritEdPol: Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies at Swarthmore College

Beginning in the late twentieth century, a surge in school violence associated with racism and urban poverty has sparked increased use of punitive approaches to school discipline, and these high-stakes approaches have become normalized in school districts nationwide. “Discipline” at the classroom and school level, understood as the procedures and interactions between students and teacher surrounding behaviors deemed inappropriate, have historically been grouped into two domains: punitive discipline and restorative justice. Punitive justice methods increased their domination in urban classrooms throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s but in the last decade or so, a new wave of conflict-resolution-based discipline has …