The Possibilities Project - Restorative Justice Resources: Defining Restorative Justice

(Re)conceptualizing Love: Moving Towards a Critical Theory of Love in Education for Social Justice by Durryle N. Brooks

• Through reflection on critical incident involving a social justice educator, this reflexive essay examines the role of love and its implications on social justice education, pedagogy, and praxis. The author argues that normative discourses on love are not innocuous, but instead hegemonic and serve as an ideology to perpetuate individualism and white supremacy.

Against the Carceral Logics of Schools: A Critical Ethnographic Study of Restorative Justice and Politicized Caring in a Black School by Rowhea Elmesky and Olivia Marcucci 

• This ethnographic analysis interrogates how restorative justice provides opportunity to politicize care within the boys mentoring group at one predominantly Black high school. The authors argue that this politicized caring is crucial to ensuring restorative practices optimize their anti-carceral potential.

Restorative [In] Justice: Why Schools Struggle to Implement Restorative Justice for Black Girls by Alaina Neal-Jackson

• This paper explores the tensions that arise when moving from restorative justice theory to practice. Without a firm grasp of and commitment to the core principles of restorative justice, the restorative process in this school was co-opted such that it reproduced the inequities it was hoping to disrupt and functioned as zero-tolerance discipline by another name.

• The video Psychologist Explains How Restorative Justice Works in D.C. High School for Young Men of Color gives a brief overview of the importance of implementing restorative justice in a school that focuses on young men of color. (If this link does not work, access starting from here.)

• This episode of the New Thinking podcast, Restorative Justice is Racial Justice, features a discussion with the Restorative Justice in Schools team who implemented restorative justice practices in five schools in New York City where a majority of the students are students of color.