Restorative Justice & a Dean of Students: An Auto-Criticism of the Role of Care in School Discipline in a Poverty Impacted Public High School

<p>This qualitative study is an auto-criticism, an approach that allows researchers to study themselves. This emergent methodology is derived from educational criticism and connoisseurship, which fits under the broader category of arts-based research. School discipline is a programmatic component of any secondary school’s educational framework and directly effects student engagement and academic achievement. An analysis of the dean role in relation to school discipline is central to this study. The main research question is what are the lived experiences of a dean who incorporates restorative justice practices in a poverty impacted public high school?</p> <p>The author spent two years as a dean of students who utilized restorative justice practices when implementing school discipline. Following the auto-criticism protocol, this project incorporates three types of data sources to analyze the lived experiences of a dean: researcher journals, dean’s office records, and schoolwide documents. This data is used to operationalize ‘restorative justice’ as an instructional tool to scaffold student engagement and mitigate disciplinary infractions. Findings show that restorative justice stimulates affective processes in both teachers and students. These affective processes offer a bridge between classroom instruction and the discipline process through a parallel process of support and an advocacy approach to teaching.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year dc:date.available

2022

Author dc:creator

• Vasquez, Alicia D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• P. Bruce Uhrmacher
• Nicholas J. Cutforth
• Paul Michalec
• Bin Ramke

• Advocacy
• Dean of students
• Restorative practices
• Social-emotional learning
• Trauma-informed education
• Education
• Educational Psychology
• Secondary Education
• Secondary Education and Teaching
• Teacher Education and Professional Development

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2088

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-3079