education for justice

• Biographies
• Capital Punishment
• Criminal Justice System
• Domestic Abuse
• Economic Justice
• Education System
• Environment
• Gender Inequality
• Gun Violence
• Health Care
• Human Trafficking
• Immigration
• Minimum Wage
• Religious Intolerance
• Voting Rights
• Water Access
• Publications
• Church Documents
• Facts & Figures
• Other Action Ideas
• Diocesan Offices
• Newsletters
• Chicago Area Events

Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern

Education for Justice, an award-winning global digital subscription membership service, has since 2001 offered a growing treasury of text-based and multimedia resources—now over 4,000—linking the signs of the times with principles and practices of Catholic social tradition. The Education for Justice library features original work from the Community of Creative Voices, a collaborative content platform for a cadre of globally prominent pastoral, thought, and executive leaders from whom the Education for Justice team commissions original work on topics regarding social justice. Read more.

Restorative Justice in the Classroom pp 229–252 Cite as

Educating for Justice: Building Restorative Futures for Students to Thrive In

• Crystena A. H. Parker-Shandal 2  
• First Online: 13 January 2023

433 Accesses

Restorative justice in education is not only about teaching practices. It can be a philosophical—and systemic—commitment to dismantling structural racism and other oppressions. This final chapter discusses how schools’ readiness also depends on showing school stakeholders that restorative justice is part of a movement. Most people need to understand the “why” for restorative justice—not just the “what” or the “how.” Focusing on numbers of suspensions and expulsions and recidivism rates will not measure the restorative school culture. While these are important and necessary for evaluating the implications of implementation, this study of pedagogical practices illustrates that a restorative culture shift is more than the implementation of circles—it’s about how people relate and connect to each other. Such dialogue practices are integral to creating restorative, peaceful classrooms.

Download chapter PDF

When we love children, we acknowledge by our every action that they are not property, that they have rights—that we respect and uphold their rights. —bell hooks

RJE is not something we do “to” students. It creates space for conflict where students can open up. Sometimes they push back. Students, like Omar, give teachers direct feedback. A young person’s act of rebellion asks: “Can you deal with me now?” When students open up, and educators respect and honor their individuality and experiences, they grow.

In monastic traditions, taking on a spiritual path brings up fears and conflicts that test a person’s course to spiritual success (Teasdale, 2003 ). There is no passing or failing these tests. They are simply a part of the process. Similarly, restorative educators move through an educative process as their implementation process ebbs and flows through conflict, in ways that allow for deeper growth and understanding. Lederach (2003/ 2014 ) shows how these educative parts of conflict are “an ecology that is relationally dynamic with ebb (conflict de-escalation to pursue constructive change) and flow (conflict escalation to pursue constructive change).” RJE’s commitment to sustaining and working through conflicts is what unlocks transformative learning and justice (Kovan & Dirkx, 2003 ).

I came to study circles in my efforts to understand how to achieve greater equity and inclusion. George Sefa Dei ( 2016 ) said: “Inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists; it is making a new space, a better space for everyone” (p. 36). Circles create a space where people can build their resistance to oppression while also nurturing each other. People learn to respect each other’s humanity, without competition or ego, as they build a culture of care. This is the hallmark of resistance movements like restorative justice.

In the African Ubuntu philosophy, inclusion means recognizing that “I am because we are.” Lak’ech, an affirmation from the Mayan tradition, means “you are my other me.” Both traditions observe that when harm is done to anyone in the community, everyone is harmed. Similarly, when a person succeeds, everyone in the community benefits. In the same way, when someone fails, everyone in the community is impacted. The Sanskrit mantra, lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu , calls for the entire world to be uplifted with love, where each person’s well-being is contingent on mutual respect.

These ancestral and Indigenous philosophies are foundational for restorative justice. However, these principles are often misconstrued and misapplied in ways that continue to promote white liberal practices. Educators and participants need to acknowledge Indigenous or scriptural philosophical principles with criticality and awareness. Without a critical lens, many of these principles become shallow rhetoric that continues to perpetuate a capitalist and neoliberal platform. At times, even with a critical lens, it is challenging for teachers committed to stabilizing whiteness to break away from hegemonic conditions, implicit bias, and the structure/institution/curriculum which works against liberation (Romano & Arms Almengor, 2021 ). Much of restorative justice’s application in schools is appropriated by a culture of individualism. White liberalists often articulate a rhetoric of love and inclusion but are quick to neutralize dissent in the name of order. Many educators and school systems contend that everyone is equal, making anti-racist training, for instance, a tool of derision.

Facilitating inclusion means critically reflecting on who is in and who is out of the circle, and on the power dynamics that perpetuate the exclusion of some while welcoming others. Schooling is a collaborative endeavor, containing social and political conflicts (McAnulty & Garrett, 2022 ). As I have shown throughout this book, circles are founded on a peace that engages conflicts and dialogue. Entering discussion about conflict with purpose—both interpersonal and on a broader scale—is essential for democratic education. Such dialogue practices are integral to creating restorative, peaceful classrooms. And in embodying this way of learning and being at school, teachers and students alike commit to paying critical attention to ensuring that these interconnections promote love and well-being. Inclusive participation is essential for mediating social conflict and social hierarchy, where people come to see their shared humanity.

Talking About Circles Without Talking in Circles: Learning From Voices and Silences

Restorative justice in education is not only about teaching practices. It can be a philosophical—and systemic—commitment to dismantling structural racism and other oppression. It is about students’ voices, which are heard differently during moments of negative peace (where direct conflict is absent) and positive peace (where there is ongoing, proactive relationship building; Galtung, 1969 ). When conflicts erupt, the voices of marginalized students need to be centered—not silenced. In the various cases across the eight elementary classrooms described in this book, most consistently, when teachers had strong relationships with their students, the potential for constructive conflict engagement (and building positive peace) increased. This engagement was evident in how these students presented themselves in classroom discussions and in relationships with peers and teachers. The students’ voices came through in differing ways—at times reinforcing hierarchy and at other times dismantling it. My research shows that much work is done by all circle participants when one person is speaking—they form thoughts, generate perspectives, and solidify relationships. Still, I did not see evidence of this in every circle I observed. Some students checked out, some chose to remain outside, some did not engage. Clearly, the tension between the theory and the actual practice persists.

When a school board mandates restorative justice, they typically do so partially, using a system-level approach emphasizing postincident management of aggression. This approach does not always consider whether schools have the readiness and adequate preparation to embrace building a restorative culture (M. A. Brown, 2021 ; Gomez et al., 2021 ). My case studies show that schools are unlikely to have 100 percent of the staff on board. Even when schools train their staff, the implementation of restorative justice pedagogies and practices varies considerably based on incidents, capacity, and school culture. In any restorative school, a large enough team needs to be on hand—one that includes teachers and educational assistants, child and youth workers, administrative staff, custodians, and parents.

Schools’ readiness also depends on showing school stakeholders that restorative justice is part of a movement. Most people need to understand the why for restorative justice. Because of this, people most often want to know about the numbers of suspensions and expulsions and recidivism rates. While these are important and necessary for evaluating the implications of implementation, my study of pedagogical practices illustrates that a restorative culture shift is more than the implementation of circles—it’s about how people relate and connect to each other.

Of course, talking about restorative justice means talking about when things do not go well. To participate authentically in the process, teachers and students must allow themselves to be vulnerable. As these cases show, while vulnerability is a skill that many restorative practitioners and participants can develop, it is not possible to mandate vulnerability in circles (Gregory & Evans, 2020 ). It is difficult work that requires commitment. However, exploring what is happening when things are not going well allows participants to understand the potential of inclusion (Gregory et al., 2016 ). This potential needs to be held on to and understood, and sometimes this takes time and many failed attempts. Because it is emotional work, it is messy and hurtful at times for both students and teachers (Garrett & Alvey, 2021 ).

Building a Culture or a Career: The Need for Commitment

Too often, administrators or leaders in school boards or teachers in schools take on the “restorative agenda” only to advance their careers or impress their superior, or because they are being mandated to participate. They seek to use it as their contribution to equity. However, in doing so they are not engaging in restorative justice in education. Such a power-driven approach threatens the long-term commitment that restorative justice requires. This is slow and often challenging work, built on relationships that center community and trust.

The teachers profiled in this book were all committed to a restorative practice in ways that made sense to them. Their approaches varied, and their implementation, at times, deeply impacted students—often in ways that included them, but at times also excluded them. Some saw restorative justice in education as a program or technique. Restorative pedagogy or circles, however, are not merely teaching strategies, but part of what could be a justice movement. For some teachers, this meant reflecting on how they might have perpetuated harm.

Some administrators worked to make restorative justice a way of life in their schools. These principals held staff meetings in a circle, offered ongoing professional development, put posters on walls, and created a school environment that demonstrated the collaborative effort across all school personnel.

For those who are resistant to restorative justice, leaders committed to the process need to frame restorative justice as invitational, so that people do not feel coerced. Drawing on shared values and relationships supports this invitational process. When a school commits to living out its values together, people must understand that this is not an optional commitment. When a student or a teacher challenges someone’s authority or integrity, a strong culture, built on values of respect and inclusion, is needed to help people live out the conflict and grow from it. One way to think about this is imagining having your child or student on this side of the conflict, and then on the other—how would your responses and perspectives shift through this empathic approach?

Ultimately, neither school boards, facilitators, nor teachers can make someone speak or participate. They may give people a talking piece, but it is impossible to mandate or require authentic and vulnerable participation.

The teacher is not a laureate, delivering prescribed knowledge to students in a critical pedagogical approach. While there are variances among their training programs, qualifications, and experiences, teachers still need to learn how to attend to students’ social and emotional well-being if they want to create a safe and healthy classroom climate conducive to learning. The teacher’s role is critical for nurturing students’ emotional and intellectual engagement. To achieve equity and inclusion fully, teachers need to do more than just teach. Enough evidence illustrates that punishing a child into learning or being good does not work; such futile punishments disproportionally impact marginalized students (Bickmore, 2004 ; Kohn, 1993 ; Mallett, 2016 ; Peterson et al., 2001 ; Rahimi & Karkami, 2015 ; Skiba & Peterson, 1999 ). To learn, students need to feel connected and safe. Restorative justice pedagogies allow students to thrive socially and academically in a culture of care. Such an approach to facilitating learning also prepares young people for active and informed democratic engagement.

Not all teachers, like Ms. Weaver, have strong administrative support and a peer group committed to creating a restorative school culture; and even though she did, Ms. Weaver struggled to address challenging issues, such as racism and discrimination. Like Ms. Rossi, some might begin a practice and purposely stop, to protect themselves. “Sticking to the curriculum” has never been the purpose of schools, but it has been a way out of doing the necessary work of creating a safe classroom. The mandate of institutionalized schooling is to transmit values and culture. Restorative justice is a means of interrupting the structural inequities of this transmission by intercepting it to establish norms and values that include all students.

Resistance is a justice-oriented exercise. Sometimes being silent is resistance; disengagement is resistance; conflict is resistance. The classroom vignettes in this book illustrate these realities and complexities of classroom talk. And more importantly, they name the fact that not all restorative circles are a success. The circles and classroom dialogue I observed were complicated, nuanced, and at times far from inclusive. However, they illustrate classroom circles’ key challenges and principles, which can better equip (and support) educators to implement restorative and dialogic pedagogies. They reflect how educators’ choices might facilitate more significant and authentic inclusion through a critical restorative lens.

Restoration Postcrisis: Deepening Connections Through Conflict

Restorative justice in education addresses the causes and consequences of conflicts—not just the symptoms. In supporting young people to navigate internal or interpersonal conflicts, educators must identify their needs and feelings. Each person’s reactions to conflict are a response to unmet needs. These “big feelings” are beautiful —they are not negative responses. Instead, they give us insight into internal strife and its underlying causes. By meeting those needs instead of focusing on the behaviors, educators deal with the cause, not the symptom.

The intensity of conflicts and imbalance around the world has created chaos. COVID-19 has shifted how educators, students, and society perceive schooling. While some people have chosen to exert pressure to return to “normal,” others have wanted to disengage from the system entirely. Schools can restore balance by tapping into the chaos, engaging with what it is and how it has come to be. Ignoring and avoiding the pressure will move young people away from restoration, continue the escalation, and go deeper without authentic engagement. Connecting authentically, restorative justice in schools will allow young people to heal and thrive.

Skeptics of restorative justice in schools often have concerns about what exactly educators are restoring, particularly within the context of reconstituting oppressive systems. For this reason, many have preferred the term transformative justice to conceptualize the movement of reconfiguring how people engage in the world (Andrzejewski et al., 2009 ; Lederach, 2003/2014; R. Morris, 2000 ). Their intention has been to consider how many Indigenous and collectivist societies have resolved conflicts and engaged with each other in a spirit of reliance and cooperation (Sumida Huaman, 2011 ). This is the kind of ethos that restorative justice seeks to restore. Transformative justice deepens this process of restoration. Like peacebuilding, its intention is to reconstitute how schools respond to conflict, using proactive measures to plant new ways of interacting and being together (Bajaj, 2018 ; Cunningham, 2015 ).

Building relationships post-COVID requires developing a kind of trust and connection that teachers might not have ever expected to have with their students. Even those resistant to restorative approaches agree that educators have been forced to handle the experience of shared trauma on the frontlines. Now is a time to reconnect and reflect, to be in relationship with each other—and to rely on shared experiences of this conflict to tend to the wounds of loss and forced disconnection.

Conflicts provide productive openings for dissecting power. When conflicts raised by students or teachers question centralized power structures, they open space for deeper understanding. Conflicts—whether they are connected to Harriet Tubman’s struggle for freedom or to why a student placed a fallen blueberry back into her neighbor’s bowl—all teach about how power is established. Conflict is valuable because it highlights violations and the implications of harming another person. How educators deal with conflict in the classroom is critical for teaching students about resistance. As students practice the communication and necessary analytical skills to decipher the uptake of conflicts, they expose themselves and others to deficiencies in their arguments. The danger in not addressing conflict and presuming neutrality is obvious—it maintains hegemonic systems of control without reason or judgment.

Embracing Vulnerability, Bringing About Systemic Change

Ms. Rossi felt the strong emotional toll of propelling a challenging process for herself and her students. She had completely stopped doing circles: “it was too hard for my students and myself emotionally.” After having experienced the suicide of one of her students and the backlash of other students who didn’t like circles, she felt isolated and decided that circle pedagogies were not suitable for her. However, she did think that she kept the principles of the restorative circle alive in other aspects of her classroom pedagogy. A huge proponent of classroom discussions, she still brought students together to discuss issues and to reflect on their learning. For the most part, it seems that she did what Ms. Harding’s principal thought would be the answer to circles that “aired dirty laundry”—she attempted to use the process to stick to the curriculum mandates.

Circles do not have to engage with students’ trauma. But when students do feel safe to express themselves, whether that is a reflection on the Black Lives Matter resistance movement when learning about Canada’s colonial history, or realizing that they have brown skin, are autistic, or have a physical disability that everyone in the class ignores, they may choose to name it. Naming experiences, whether directly connected to the mandated curriculum (content or the rule) or as “lived” or enacted curriculum (Aoki, 1993 ), is a vulnerable process. How educators offer support—through inclusion and exclusion—drives both students’ and teachers’ aptitude for further engagement or disengagement. Restorative justice in schools provides a platform to engage in critical dialogue and pedagogy—necessary processes to build a democratic society that promotes civic engagement.

The thick description of my observations and interactions in these various classrooms and schools illustrates both the power and perils of the circle process. Teachers can never expect to just sit in a circle and assume that all is well. The circle process needs to be carefully implemented and interrogated. There needs to be consistent attention to who’s in and who’s out. Furthermore, facilitators need to consider their mindset and capacity to engage emotionally.

Restorative justice in education is difficult work. It requires adequate training, mentorship, and support for teachers. And it involves teachers being willing to pursue this philosophical and cultural shift toward a more inclusive, anti-oppressive, and relational environment. However, many educators are not committed to doing the work that is required. Their harmful approach to managing conflict is detrimental to relationships, most deeply impacting students who must bear the brunt of a destructive restorative process that has landed on them without purpose or care. Being a savior for restorative justice is not restorative justice. As Audre Lorde ( 2007 ) put it:

The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. (p. 27)

Lorde ( 2003 ) invited a kind of critical reflection that would inspire all practitioners to question their role in perpetuating injustice. The application of restorative justice in Western contexts has used Western constructs to reproduce colonial, hegemonic structures. Thus, it has demeaned the essence of a process intended to dismantle power structures, not support them. The realities of the cradle-to-school-to-prison pipeline, Black Lives Matter, the Standing Rock Water Protectors, and the truths of how the world system allocates power during a global pandemic all indicate the dire need to go beyond voicing injustices or simply talking about applying restorative practices. There needs to be a societal commitment to a fundamental shift in how we approach and respond to conflict in and beyond classrooms and schools.

This study illustrated how teachers negotiate various risks in their circle practice. Some felt safer taking minimal risks. Ms. Weaver, for instance, still felt much more confident navigating higher-risk questions, such as how to deal with anger toward a family member, even in a classroom where multiple cliques prevailed. However, the likelihood of her facilitating this kind of circle in her first year of implementation in such a context would likely have been rare. Below, I outline how these teachers across various schools and contexts approached creating connections with their students and building community.

Approaches to Creating Connection and Building Community

Restorative justice in praxis is a dedication to a lifelong philosophical way of seeing the world and of seeing each other. Educators who are motivated to commit to this practice may come to it from a place of experiencing injustice themselves. In wanting to do something to make a change, they relentlessly pursue their need for inclusive and equitable justice. Efforts at seeking love and inclusion require the teachers to do deep work within themselves. The systemic change that this envisions relies on educators’ moral integrity; it involves confronting how their own (or others’) actions have contributed to the exclusion of others.

Above all, this study has illustrated how restorative pedagogies and practicing peacemaking skills increase learning opportunities. I have documented the realities and complexities of classroom circles in various contexts to encourage educators to not only reflect on their own practice but to accept that not all circles will be perfect—and that that is OK. Despite the various applications and nuances in multiple classrooms, all students had more just and equitable access to learning because of their teachers’ approaches to restorative justice. I have identified five critical ingredients in these different approaches that nurture restorative justice in diverse classrooms:

Nurturing teachers’ and students’ confidence in the process

Knowing your students through critical relationality

Norming and facilitation processes to keep the rhythm of the circle

Sustaining conflict dialogue

Centering inclusive language

Nurturing Teachers’ and Students’ Confidence in the Process

Students appeared to take to circles much more easily in classes where the teacher demonstrated confidence in their ability to facilitate and implement them. Ms. Spence, new to teaching special education classes and new to circle processes, felt challenged by the idea of it all. Ms. Rossi, an extremely confident and capable teacher, led circles with ease and then stepped back from facilitating when her confidence wavered. Ms. Weaver came to circles quite optimistic about the intention of the process but not as confident in her skills. As the years progressed and her confidence increased, she navigated through a tough school year because of her faith in the circle process.

Training and ongoing mentorship are necessary to encourage teachers’ confidence. Even more critical is committing to constant circle practice in the classroom. In most classrooms, this means starting with where teachers and administrators are comfortable—such as starting with safer topics before moving on to complex conflicts. As the classroom community gets stronger, students’ and teachers’ confidence in circles will further grow and bring people closer together.

Most teachers demonstrated confidence in their pedagogical engagement where they worked in schools with a solid restorative school climate. Teachers who had one or two colleagues who understood and believed in restorative justice appeared more equipped to handle conflict and, as a result, handled it constructively. Furthermore, strong relationships among and between staff and school personnel are critical to an effective anti-racist restorative process (Jain et al., 2014 ). Restorative pedagogies help teachers feel confident about choosing appropriate teaching strategies, thereby increasing the potential for student engagement.

Knowing Your Students Through Critical Relationality

Relationships are crucial to any restorative process (J. J. Llewellyn & Morrison, 2018 ). When young people have strong relationships, even if with just one adult, their opportunities for social and academic success increase. Strong relationships can interrupt intergenerational trauma and promote healing. However, not everyone has equal access to strong relationships.

Ms. Davis knew her students well enough to ask how they were doing; she inquired about what was happening in their lives, offered them breaks when she knew they were needed, and gave them leadership roles to empower their presence. Ms. Davis’s concerted efforts to build strong relationships while pursuing constructive conflicts in math contributed to her restorative classroom culture.

Judith Kleinfeld’s ( 1975 ) study of classrooms for Indigenous children in Alaska in the early 1970s sought to identify characteristics of teachers who were able to build connections with students. For example, teachers who praised their students verbally and nonverbally (such as smiling or having a sparkle in their eyes) reinforced what Kleinfeld referred to as “desirable classroom behavior” and “effective teacher behavior” (p. 306). Teachers who demonstrated “personal warmth” while also holding high expectations for students led to successful teaching and student engagement.

Kleinfeld ( 1975 ) also argued that the “villain” in Indigenous students’ education is “the ethnocentric teacher who is unselfconsciously trying to indoctrinate students into the ‘American way of life’” (p. 317). Such teachers attempt to rationalize their failure by further disseminating this indoctrination, even when students resist through silence or other means of resistance. Such disconnect deepens with hegemonic approaches to curriculum that are disconnected from students’ lives.

A culturally centered teaching practice is critical for postpandemic pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 2021 ; Paris, 2021 ). Restorative justice needs to be a central component for rebuilding schools and restoring relationships. The power of community building and relational connection is not new. Too many basic, innately human tendencies—functioning and thriving in a collectivist environment, relying on human relationships—have been overrun by capitalism and an individualist culture that seeks to dominate. It is possible to nurture success and also what Kleinfeld ( 1975 ) would call warmth.

Teachers’ warmth is critical for building authentic student relationships. Authentically acknowledging and validating students’ academic and nonacademic talents means knowing and valuing their experiences (Toshalis, 2012 ). However, over-praising can create superficial relationships based on exaggeration and can thus be inauthentic. At times, circles ask people to share deeply about themselves. The process can quickly deteriorate when relationships are not built yet.

In building relationships, critical race theory and trauma-informed practices are crucial for disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline (Brummer, 2020 ; Dutil, 2020 ; Evans et al., 2021 ). Punitive approaches to managing conflict are often retraumatizing for students experiencing destructive and aggressive conflict in their homes and communities. Most young people are not consciously aware of this retraumatization. Instead, they are likely to become further desensitized because of the punishments they receive. They equip themselves to push harder and prepare their bodies and minds to receive the often negative repercussions. Building warm and restorative relationships with students allows them to let down—even if only temporarily—the protective shield that punitive discipline has forced them to build.

Neoliberal approaches to restorative justice allow those who uphold whiteness to be comforted as they argue for a sole focus on individual relationships that does not pay attention to power and privilege (O’Brien & Nygreen, 2020 ). A critical, anti-oppressive approach to restorative justice in education, in contrast, involves deep exploration of equity, race, and inclusion (Stewart & Ezell, 2022 ). Unfortunately, the large-scale interest in quick-fix implementation has allowed some schools to adopt this apparent panacea in ways that purposely target and exclude others.

Norming and Facilitation Processes to Keep the Rhythm of the Circle

Conflict in a restorative circle means that the process is working . When conflict arises, it usually means that people feel safe to share, explore, and explode. In any restorative process, norming and expectations for participation contribute to students feeling safe enough to share their deep feelings and experiences. Remaining calm and neutral when conflict arises is challenging! It is hard to stay on a restorative wavelength in these critical and conflictual moments.

Teachers’ feelings and perceptions are bound to influence how conflicts unfold. Ms. Fitzgerald, the primary teacher, modeled how younger children rely on more rigid structures. Young children are more noticeably perplexed when the daily rhythm or schedule is out of sync. As students get older, changes in schedule and abrupt transitions are internalized more frequently, and stress is shown in different ways. Keeping the rhythm of the circle is an integral part of the process. When participants follow and respect the intended guidelines and sequencing, they contribute to a safer and more inclusive space.

Each morning when the Grade 2 and Grade 3 students arrived at their desks, they knew their teacher would invite them to move to the carpet for their morning circle. They also knew that Ethan, who sat facing the window, would likely not join and would resist (see Chap. 7 ). This impacted the circle’s rhythm. Ms. Fitzgerald, at times, spoke to her overall goal of keeping their community centered, and continued with the process despite the erratic participation levels.

Circles are often a transformative process, because they provide an opportunity to heal hurts. As young people work through conflicts, processing their pain, they cannot always be expected to hold it together. Instead, they may act out that pain in ways that might be perceived as vicious. Omar in Grade 8 (see Chap. 4 ) was not that different from Ethan in Grade 2—they both needed to be heard and included. In each of these cases, I showed how restorative principles impacted the various people in the room. Their desire for a place in the circle meant that they sat on the circle’s periphery to start. It is no wonder that Ethan’s teacher observed that when Ethan did choose to sit in the circle, he was constantly attending to the facilitation process, making sure that those holding the talking piece were the ones speaking and that those who passed had another chance to speak.

Beliefs about marginalized groups stem from racist beliefs and ideas that have informed various presumptions and assumptions. For instance, when educators and researchers name something as being wrong about a particular racial group, they are also stating their belief that something is inferior about that racial group (Kendi, 2019 , p. 11). This naming of marginalized groups is often done with the intent to invoke white-supremacist norms. For instance, Omar’s exclusion from the circle may have been treated differently had he not been from Syria and presumably associated with gang violence and war. At the same time, his inclusion in participating rendered his actions social and culturally appropriate for the classroom norms. The perception of his exclusion was steeped in racist beliefs and ideas that structure how teachers—and researchers—respond to students, particularly in high-conflict situations. It might be wise for teachers reflecting on their process to stop and think differently about the student sitting outside the circle. Is that student aware that there is always a seat for them in the circle? How can teachers pause to examine these issues introspectively to understand better how their actions have impacted others? And most importantly, how can they stop blaming the students for their disengagement?

Having a restorative impulse involves normalizing constructive conflict, which gives students the freedom to ask questions and respond to each other. In this book, examples of resolving and sustaining conflict dialogue illustrate how to inhibit the reproduction of a harmful cycle of violence. While three teachers spoke about sharing the circle facilitator role with students, others maintained their teacher-facilitator position and executed their power as such. For example, in the classroom with six autistic children, four adults in the room maintained their position of power. Even though some of the students eventually engaged in the process, there was never any question about who oversaw the circle.

Sustaining Conflict Dialogue and Taking a Stand Against the In-Group

In those classrooms where restorative justice pedagogy was used, time constraints inhibited student empowerment and conflict dialogue. As such, while some conflicts were taken up constructively, the time teachers in many classrooms devoted to deep discussion was limited and reinforced by unequal privilege (Dull & Murrow, 2008 ). Not surprisingly, these teachers often struggled with whether to allow the content to dominate their lessons or pause to nurture a productive deliberation of divergent perspectives (Pace, 2015 ).

Teachers play a critical role in shaping students’ understandings about social and political issues concerning racism and discrimination (P. Thomas, 2016 ). This study of restorative teachers has shown that teachers (and teacher educators) need to explicitly teach how to address conflicts in ways that challenge and identify inequities. Classroom dialogue can engage students equitably while also providing the kind of literacy young people need to analyze extremist ideologies, populism, and questionable “facts” that they have been exposed to through the media and their sociocultural environment. Oppressive, extremist, or hate-fueled ideologies can play out in varying ways in schools, often leading to bullying and conflict between students (Aronson, 2000 ; Walters, 2014 ).

When young people are social outcasts, their propensity to engage in bullying or extremist behavior may increase. Youth who seek out extremist or white-supremacist groups are typically ostracized in their school, family, or community. Some say that this exclusion has contributed to homegrown terrorism, in which fringe fanatics form groups that draw young people in (Davies, 2014 ; P. Thomas, 2016 ). A restorative culture creates norms for interfaith dialogue, where young people wanting to engage in contentious conversations can explore their points of view or play with alternative perspectives (Parker & Gill, 2021 ). Lack of opportunities to have these critical dialogues with a trusted adult in the classroom could force young people to have them outside of school. This creates the risk that young people move their conversations underground, making it much harder for teachers to intervene (Novelli, 2017 ).

Exclusion can lead some young people to feel so powerless that they remove themselves from school; disengaging, truancy, and suicide attempts are all too common for young people who experience identity-targeted bullying. Too often, those who are victims are often perpetrators, and perpetrators are also victims.

Targeted attacks against social identity groups—whether they be Black, Muslim, Jewish, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQIA+, or women—will continue as long as people join the in-crowd or else remain silent (Diazgranados, 2014 ; Woglom & Pennington, 2010 ). Restorative justice practitioners, educators, and researchers need to reflect on the principles that ground our practice. It is easy to continue being a bystander to structural violence—even as a restorative practitioner. That is what makes action so challenging. Joining the bystanders and doing nothing allow many people to feel safer in the dominant group.

Naming exclusionary practices within restorative justice approaches involves action; it involves standing up to the principles of whiteness that have become embedded in restorative processes. It is even more challenging to do this from the dominant position. Part of the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum (Strom, 1994 ) introduces the story of Eve Shalen. Eve told her story about being bullied and joining in with the bullies themselves to make fun of another girl. From this in-group position, she perpetuated further hate; she could not end the bullying. In the Facing History curriculum, she told her story alongside the story of Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, thus illustrating the implications of not taking a stand to help others. To interrupt systemic racism, or to stop hate crimes or climate change, members of society need to acknowledge that there is a problem, take responsibility, and do something about it. Joining the in-crowd will not contribute to building an inclusive culture. Taking a stand against injustice is a critical point in this journey.

Inclusive and Centering Language

Choices about words matter, and they matter a lot. If a teacher threatens a child or asks them to leave before coming into the circle, they violate the process: the system of care and connection has been disrupted by harmful—and punitive—language. Understanding—and embracing—the link between restorative justice and anti-oppression work is critical for an inclusive and critical approach to restorative justice implementation in schools. People who are aware and knowledgeable about anti-bias work are not necessarily equipped with the conflict language to deeply engage with the controversial issues prevalent in this work.

Correct language points to how and when to intervene, and how to create a just world. How it is used contributes to teaching students to understand justice when conflict arises. For ELLs, circles are a critical communicative community-building tool. ELLs are subject to more punitive disciplinary practices, perpetuating further marginalization and exclusion (Pentón Herrera & McNair, 2020 ). When learning a new language, much pedagogical emphasis centers on rote learning for literacy development, such as grammar and spelling. However, engaging in community-building practices is also a necessary and beneficial component in their learning. Traumas potentially suffered by refugee students, for instance, need to be addressed, as well as the internalized oppression and exclusion of not having access to the dominant language (Parker, 2021 ). Such social and emotional burdens make language learning that much more complex for ELLs. In circles, students can reflect and engage with their own and others’ language and culture. Having access to the social and emotional support offered by restorative justice’s community-building practices can support all students and actively engage their literacy learning (Pentón Herrera & McNair, 2020 ).

Literacy is an essential concept for helping people develop and make sense of their world. Literacy is more than being able to read, write, and communicate: it includes the tools needed to engage in active resistance (Freire, 1970/ 2007 ; hooks, 1994 ). For marginalized people, literacy can be one of the only ways to create critical consciousness. Participation in circles and other peacemaking and peacebuilding processes can deepen the emotional literacy that is needed for developing critical literacy. For instance, in Bickmore’s ( 2002 ) school mediation study, Grade 4 students whose administrators had barred them from participating in the mediation training and programming scored lower on their standardized literacy test than Grade 4s in equivalent schools where they had been allowed to participate in mediation activities.

Teaching young people how to identify their own emotions and the emotions of others builds their capacity to understand and empathize with others. Learning practical communication skills—restorative dialogue—is foundational for literacy achievement; it forms the basis of academic learning. In a restorative process, young people are equipped with the tools and strategies to understand their needs, and to define what support they need for their social and emotional development.

Restorative justice becomes infiltrated with whiteness when working within systems of whiteness (Mattis, 2020 ). It is critical that, in restorative training and early days of implementation, trainers and trainees are acutely aware of how their words and choices might perpetuate exclusion.

Moving Beyond Policy Changes: Transforming Consciousness to Address Structural Racism

Making changes to policies is part of the essential psychological shift needed to contribute to a more restorative school culture. For example, administrators must carry the critical consciousness necessary for assessing how their actions or inactions effectively lead to the more significant punishment for students of color. Restorative justice is not only about circles. It is about teaching people—students and teachers alike—to interrogate implicit biases. These resistance strategies are tools for examining and dismantling hegemonic systems of control. Structural racism persists not only because of policies but because of how school personnel view students of color.

When schools enact punishments that purposely work to target students of color, the impact on those students’ learning and engagement is compromised. Unfairly targeted and punished by schooling systems, administrators, or teachers, students are more likely to skip school, disengage academically, or drop out altogether. Rendered powerless, marginalized students are left with few tools or support to advocate for themselves. Such students often end up with less earning potential, and their potential for ending up in prison is exacerbated (C. Y. Kim et al., 2010 ). Schools’ use of exclusionary and punitive punishments causes many negative impacts—both psychological and physical. Speaking from his American context, Daniel Losen ( 2011 ) argued:

Since children are not expendable, since many suspensions respond to behavior for which many other students are not suspended, and since Black students are disproportionately hit by these discretionary removals, we must be concerned about how disciplinary removal affects the removed students, not just those who remain in class. The notion that schools should “kick out the bad kids so the good kids can learn” violates a commitment to equal educational opportunity for all students. (p. 10)

The increase in the popularity of restorative justice is indicative of a shift in consciousness toward believing that exclusion does not equal justice. RJE speaks back to punitive white-supremacist frameworks (McCants-Turner, 2022 ). It presents an alternative platform to engage with young people, one that educators and administrators could use to reframe their misconceptions about student rebellion—seeing it instead as productive behavior (Velez et al., 2020 ). Students are not acting out: they are “hurting out” (Arms Almengor, 2020 ). Equipping teachers, administrators, and all school personnel with tools to understand racial justice, and what that looks like in the classroom and in disciplinary forums, is critical to enriching the lives of unfairly and unjustly targeted students.

Ultimately, a neoliberal restorative approach is a celebratory process—it is akin to recalling heroes and holidays on multicultural days. In such an application, schools reduce restorative justice to an optional extracurricular. Creating conscious opportunities for reflection on complicity and action is one way that restorative justice in education facilitates inclusion and equity. This is not about scheduling one-time mix-it-up lunches or a so-called restorative intervention to convince people of how their commitment to whiteness has harmed others (Wadhwa, 2020 ). Instead, it acknowledges this as a starting point and consciously addresses these harms. Any restorative initiative must empower people by confronting social structures and barriers through a philosophical shift. By pushing these boundaries—through centering the restorative principles of inclusion and resistance—schooling will equip all students to participate in a more just and democratic society.

Sweetgrass Circle Complete, by Lorrie Gallant

Andrzejewski, J., Baltodano, M., & Symcox, L. (2009). Social justice, peace, and environmental education: Transformative standards . Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203879429

Book   Google Scholar  

Aoki, T. T. (1993). Legitimating lived curriculum: Towards a curricular landscape of multiplicity. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 8 (3), 255–268.

Google Scholar  

Arms Almengor, R. (2020). Women colorizing restorative justice in White-led institutions. In E. Valandra (Ed.), Colorizing restorative justice: Voicing our realities (pp. 131–141). Living Justice Press.

Aronson, E. (2000). Nobody left to hate: Teaching compassion after Columbine . Freeman.

Bajaj, M. (2018). Conceptualizing transformative agency in education for peace, human rights and social justice. International Journal of Human Rights Education, 2 (1), 1–21. https://repository.usfca.edu/ijhre/vol2/iss1/13

Bickmore, K. (2002). Peer mediation training and program implementation in elementary schools: Research results. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 19 (4).

Bickmore, K. (2004). Discipline for democracy? School districts’ management of conflict and social exclusion. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32 (1), 75–97.

Article   Google Scholar  

Brown, M. A. (2021). We cannot return to “normal”: A post-COVID call for a systems approach to implementing restorative justice in education (RJE). Laws, 10 (3), 68.

Brummer, J. (2020). Building a trauma-informed restorative school: Skills and approaches for improving culture and behavior. Jessica Kingsley.

Cunningham, J. (2015). Conflict transformation through school: A curriculum for sustainable peace . Institute of Education Press.

Davies, L. (2014). Interrupting extremism by creating educative turbulence. Curriculum Inquiry, 44 (4), 450–468.

Dei, G. J. S. (2016, March). Decolonizing the university: The challenges and possibilities of inclusive education. Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 11 (1), 23–61. https://doi.org/10.18740/S4WW31

Diazgranados, S. (2014, Summer). How students’ perceptions of the school climate influence their choice to upstand, bystand, or join perpetrators of bullying. Harvard Educational Review, 84 (2), 162–187.

Dull, L., & Murrow, S. (2008). Is dialogic questioning possible in social studies classrooms? Theory and Research in Social Education, 36 (4), 391–412.

Dutil, S. (2020, July). Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline: A trauma-informed, critical race perspective on school discipline. Children & Schools, 42 (3), 171–178. https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/cdaa016

Evans, K., Morrison, B., & Vaandering, D. (2021). Critical race theory and restorative justice education. In T. Lewis & C. Stauffer (Eds.), Listening to the movement: Essays on new growth and new challenges in restorative justice (p. 77). Cascade Books.

Freire, P. (2007). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published 1970)

Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6 (3), 167–192.

Garrett, H. J., & Alvey, E. (2021). Exploring the emotional dynamics of a political discussion. Theory & Research in Social Education, 49 (1), 1–26.

Gomez, J. A., Rucinski, C. L., & Higgins-D’Alessandro, A. (2021). Promising pathways from school restorative practices to educational equity. Journal of Moral Education, 50 (4), 452–470.

Gregory, A., Clawson, K., Davis, A., & Gerewitz, J. (2016). The promise of restorative practices to transform teacher-student relationships and achieve equity in school discipline. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 26 (4), 325–353.

Gregory, A., & Evans, K. R. (2020). The starts and stumbles of restorative justice in education: Where do we go from here? National Education Policy Center.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom . Routledge.

Jain, S., Bassey, H., Brown, M. A., & Karla, P. (2014). Restorative justice in Oakland schools: Implementation and impacts. An effective strategy to reduce racially disproportionate discipline, suspensions, and improve academic outcomes . The Office of Civil Rights, US Department of Education, Oakland Unified School District, Data in Action.

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an antiracist . One World.

Kim, C. Y., Losen, D. J., & Hewitt, D. T. (2010). The school-to-prison pipeline . New York University Press.

Kleinfeld, J. (1975, February). Effective teachers of Eskimo and Indian students. School Review, 83 (2), 301–344.

Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Kovan, J. T., & Dirkx, J. M. (2003). “Being called awake”: The role of transformative learning in the lives of environmental activists. Adult Education Quarterly, 53 (2), 99–118.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). I’m here for the hard re-set: Post pandemic pedagogy to preserve our culture. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54 (1), 68–78.

Lederach, J. (2014). The little book of conflict transformation: Clear articulation of the guiding principles by a pioneer in the field . Simon & Schuster. (Original work published 2003)

Llewellyn, J. J., & Morrison, B. (2018). Deepening the relational ecology of restorative justice. The International Journal of Restorative Justice, 1 (3), 343–355. https://doi.org/10.5553/IJRJ/258908912018001003001

Lorde, A. (2003). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Feminist postcolonial theory: A reader, 25 , 27.

Lorde, A. (2007). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches . Crossing Press.

Losen, D. J. (2011). Discipline policies, successful schools, and racial justice . http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/discipline-policies

Mallett, C. A. (2016). The school-to-prison pipeline: From school punishment to rehabilitative inclusion. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 60 (4), 296–304.

Mattis, S. (2020). In my rightful place. In Colorizing restorative justice (pp. 193–202). Living Justice Press.

McAnulty, J., & Garrett, H. J. (2022). Positioning students for political discussions: Attending to the mode of address. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 46 (2), 101–110.

McCants-Turner, J. R. (2022). Can restorative justice make young, Black lives matter in schools? In S. Y. Bowland, H. Batts, B. Roy, & M. A. Trujillo (Eds.), Beyond equity and inclusion in conflict resolution: Recentering the profession (pp. 247–259). Rowman & Littlefield.

Morris, R. (2000). Stories of transformative justice . Canadian Scholars Press.

Novelli, M. (2017). Education and countering violent extremism: Western logics from south to north? Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 47 (6), 835–851.

O’Brien, D., & Nygreen, K. (2020). Advancing restorative justice in the context of racial neoliberalism: Engaging contradictions to build humanizing spaces. Equity & Excellence in Education, 53 (4), 519–531. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1791768

Pace, J. L. (2015). The charged classroom: Predicaments and possibilities for democratic teaching . Routledge.

Paris, D. (2021, July). Culturally sustaining pedagogies and our futures. The Educational Forum, 85 (4), 364–376.

Parker, C. A. (2021). Refugee children in Canadian schools: The role of teachers in supporting integration and inclusion. In G. Melnyk & C. A. Parker (Eds.), Finding refuge in Canada: Narratives of dislocation . Athabasca University Press.

Parker, C. A., & Gill, R. (2021). Religious literacy and restorative justice with youth: The role of community service professionals in mediating social inclusion. Religion & Education, 48 (2), 141–154.

Pentón Herrera, L. J., & McNair, R. L. (2020). Restorative and community-building practices as social justice for English learners. TESOL Journal, 12 (e523), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.523

Peterson, R. L., Larson, J., & Skiba, R. (2001). School violence prevention: Current status and policy recommendations. Law & Policy, 23 (3), 345–371.

Rahimi, M., & Karkami, F. H. (2015). The role of teachers’ classroom discipline in their teaching effectiveness and students’ language learning motivation and achievement: A path method. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 3 (1), 57–82.

Romano, A., & Arms Almengor, R. (2021, March). It’s deeper than that!: Restorative justice and the challenge of racial reflexivity in White-led schools. Urban Education . https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085921998419

Skiba, R., & Peterson, R. (1999). The dark side of zero tolerance: Can punishment lead to safe schools? The Phi Delta Kappan, 80 (5), 372–382.

Stewart, R., & Ezell, J. (2022). Understanding perceptions, barriers, and opportunities around restorative justice in urban high schools. Urban Education , 1–30.

Strom, M. S. (1994). Facing history and ourselves: Holocaust and human behavior . Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation.

Sumida Huaman, E. (2011). Transforming education, transforming society: The co-construction of critical peace education and Indigenous education. Journal of Peace Education, 8 (3), 243–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400201.2011.621374

Teasdale, W. (2003). A monk in the world: Cultivating a spiritual life . New World Library.

Thomas, P. (2016). Youth, terrorism and education: Britain’s Prevent programme. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 35 (2), 171–187.

Toshalis, E. (2012). The rhetoric of care: Preservice teacher discourses that depoliticize, deflect, and deceive. Urban Review, 44 , 1–35.

Velez, G., Hahn, M., Recchia, H., & Wainryb, C. (2020). Rethinking responses to youth rebellion: Recent growth and development of restorative practices in schools. Current Opinion in Psychology, 35 , 36–40.

Wadhwa, A. (2020). “What do you want, reparations?” Racial microaggressions and restorative justice. In C olorizing restorative justice (pp. 159–172). Living Justice Press.

Walters, M. A. (2014). Hate crime and restorative justice: Exploring causes, repairing harm . Oxford University Press.

Woglom, L., & Pennington, K. (2010). The bystander’s dilemma: How can we turn our students into upstanders? Social Education, 74 (5), 254–258.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Renison University College, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

Crystena A. H. Parker-Shandal

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Crystena A. H. Parker-Shandal .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter.

Parker-Shandal, C.A.H. (2022). Educating for Justice: Building Restorative Futures for Students to Thrive In. In: Restorative Justice in the Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_8

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_8

Published : 13 January 2023

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-031-16589-4

Online ISBN : 978-3-031-16590-0

eBook Packages : Education Education (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Curriculum and Instruction

Critical Practices: • Critical Engagement with Materials • Supporting All Learners Through Differentiation • Supporting Student Action • Cooperative and Collaborative Learning • Social Justice-Based Assessment, Evaluation and Grading

Educator and author Lee Anne Bell, Ed.D., provides an excellent analysis of social justice in the Learning for Justice article “ What Is Social Justice Education? ” Bell defines the critical role of social justice education as: “[providing] tools to examine the structural features of oppression and our own socialization within unjust systems. It helps us develop awareness of injustice in our personal lives, communities, institutions and the broader society. Such an education enables us to develop empathy and commitment, as well as skills and tools for acting with others to interrupt and change oppressive patterns and behaviors in ourselves and the institutions and communities of which we are a part. Understanding the dynamics of oppression is important for developing effective strategies to counteract it.”

That understanding of social justice can inform the selection or development of curriculum (what is taught) and the practice of instruction (how the content is taught). The topics and strategies in this section provide educators with tools to build students’ understanding of justice and help them develop skills to take action and participate in a diverse democracy.

Sign in to save these resources.

Login or create an account to save resources to your bookmark collection.

New Virtual Workshops Are Available Now!

Registrations are now open for our 90-minute virtual open enrollment workshops. Explore the schedule, and register today—space is limited!

Get the Learning for Justice Newsletter

• Our Mission

Incorporating Social Justice in the Curriculum

A framework based on interdisciplinary experiential learning can help teachers approach issues of injustice with middle and high school students.

In several states in the United States, talking about race and racism is currently restricted in one way or another . In the year 2021, not 1950. So how will those of us who are committed anti-biased and anti-racist teachers proceed? With conviction and vigor.

Part of what we need to do is to reimagine education—to apply pedagogical theory to practice, design rigorous and engaging curricula, implement effective lessons, and critically analyze texts and subject matter with students, all while integrating issues of social justice. The teaching of truth is how we will get there. This is an opportunity for us to flex our creative muscles and practice what we preach.

Textured Teaching is one answer to this need. This new framework, which I developed , is centered on culturally sustaining pedagogy  and asks teachers to work with four ideas: flexibility, interdisciplinary design, experiential learning, and a student-driven, community-centered approach. When teachers practice Textured Teaching, they’re working toward social justice—it’s a form of activism in the classroom.

4 Pillars of Textured Teaching

1. Flexibility: Through flexibility of design, structures, assessments, and more, teachers are able to meet students where they are and help them move closer to the desired goals. We’re also flexible about our role with students and our expectations. That flexibility requires that we practice and model for students the bending and pushing we need in order to work toward liberation.

Flexibility also involves pushing against rigid, biased rules that oppress students. For example, in the past there were rules that did not allow African Americans to read, that demanded assimilation from Native children, or that punished bilingualism. Today, there are rules like not allowing students to attend graduation because of the texture or style of their hair, deeming certain cultural attire unacceptable, or discriminating against Black girls in schools.

2. Interdisciplinary design: An interdisciplinary approach to teaching welcomes the integration of many ideas and subjects into the ones we teach. It humanizes students’ learning by welcoming diversity of thought. It allows us to think critically across systems, helps students see the power of our subject area in the “real world,” and supports them in developing a critical eye to analyze how institutions interact to maintain oppression around them.

In a math classroom, for example, this can be accomplished by having students research and study early Mayan pyramids. By considering their design (architecture), doing some basic research (history), and creating drawings (art), students can engage in an interdisciplinary mathematical exercise that is skill based and celebratory of Indigenous creation and intellect.

3. Experiential learning: Through experiential learning, we bring our subject matter to life. We help students see it, feel it, and more fully internalize it. In this way, we are effective at supporting students in developing both skills and empathy. This empathy builds along the way as students find themselves in the shoes of the people they are learning about or deepening their understanding of social issues they are exploring together. It can happen naturally but should be fostered intentionally by the teacher through content design.

For example, when teaching the respiratory system, a science teacher might include issues of asthma and how it impacts the Black community, and engage students in understanding how environmental discrimination plays a role in this problem. The class could take a trip to a local politician’s office to advocate for better living conditions, or to a local agency that is organizing to bring about change for the community.

4. A student-driven and community-centered approach: Lasty, Textured Teaching requires a student-driven and community-centered approach. We should be aiming to help the young people in front of us make sense of the society they live in, find ways to address the problems in it, and work hard to make it better.

With a student-driven approach, teachers welcome the issues that matter to students and focus on their needs versus simply whatever the curriculum demands. Sometimes there is a discrepancy between academic demands and student needs. We work for students, and we should be driven by their needs. This includes surveying them about topics they want to study and leveraging their knowledge for further learning, as well as welcoming their feedback into curriculum design.

Being community centered means being aware of what is going on in the students’ community and incorporating some of that to make lessons and content both relatable and useful. Is the community undergoing radical change due to gentrification? Make space for that in your math classroom through a statistical study of the population shifts. Is there a local climate or land issue? Make it a field trip in your science class and embed the topic in your unit. Are there racial tensions in the community? Welcome a book that explores this issue in your ELA classroom. This helps students transfer their skills much more easily to deal with their reality.

Students are not just the future—they are the present. How are we guiding them to be the change everyone, including themselves, needs right now? A Textured Teacher lives in the gray areas and messiness of our society—they address social issues and thrive when students start to solve problems that matter to them.

The Right Has an Opportunity to Rethink Education in America

T he casual observer can be forgiven if it looks like both the left and the right are doing their best to lose the debate over the future of American education.

On the left, public officials and self-righteous advocates practically fall over themselves working to subsidize and supersize bloated bureaucracies, hollowed-out urban school systems, and campus craziness. They’ve mutely watched teacher strikes shutter schools and insisted that “true history” requires the U.S. to be depicted as a cesspool of racism and villainy .

Meanwhile, on the right, bleating outrage impresarios have done their best to undercut the easy-to-make case for educational choice by weaving it into angry tirades against well-liked local schools. They’ve taken Taylor Swift, a strait-laced pop star beloved by middle school and high school girls, and imagined her as part of some bizarre Biden Administration PSYOP. Heck, they’ve even decided to try to “ take down ” Martin Luther King, Jr., a Civil Rights icon honored for his legacy of justice, equality, and nonviolence.

What gives?

The left has a problem. Democrats have long benefited from alliances with teacher unions, campus radicals, and the bureaucrats who run the college cartel. This played well with a public that tended to  like  its teachers, schools, and colleges. But  pandemic school closures ,  plunging trust in colleges , and  open antisemitism  have upended the status quo.

This has created an extraordinary opportunity for the right—free of ties with unions, public bureaucracies, and academe—to defend shared values, empower students and families, and rethink outdated arrangements. The right is uniquely positioned to lead on education because it’s not hindered by the left’s entanglements, and is thus much freer to rethink the way that early childhood, K-12, and higher education are organized and delivered.

The right also needs to demonstrate that it cares as much (or more) about the kitchen table issues that affect American families as the culture war issues that animate social media. Affordability, access, rigor, convenience, appropriateness, are the things that parents care about, and the right needs something to offer them.

The question is whether the right will choose to meet the moment at a time when too many public officials seem more interested in social media exposure than solving problems.

We’re optimists. We think the right can rise to the challenge.

It starts with a commitment to principle, shared values, and real world solutions. This is easier than it sounds. After all, the public  sides  with conservatives on hot-button disputes around race, gender, and American history by lopsided margins. Americans broadly  agree  that students should learn both the good and bad about American history,  reject  race-based college admissions,  believe  that student-athletes should play on teams that match their biological sex, and  don’t think  teachers should be discussing gender in K–3 classrooms.

And, while some thoughtful conservatives recoil from accusations of wading into “culture wars,” it’s vital for to talk forthrightly about shared values. Wall Street Journal-NORC  polling , for instance, reports that, when asked to identify values important to them, 94 percent of Americans identified hard work, 90 percent said tolerance for others, 80 percent said community involvement, 73 percent said patriotism, 65 percent said belief in God, and 65 percent said having children. Schools should valorize hard work, teach tolerance, connect students to their community, promote patriotism, and be open minded towards faith and family.

At the same time, of course, educational outcomes matter mightily, for students and the nation . A commitment to rigor, excellence, and merit is a value that conservatives should unabashedly champion. And talk about an easy sell! More than 80 percent of Americans say standardized tests like the SAT should matter for college admissions . Meanwhile, California’s Democratic officials recently approved new math standards that would end advanced math in elementary and middle school and Oregon’s have abolished the requirement that high school graduates be literate and numerate. The right should both point out the absurdity of such policies and carry the banner for high expectations, advanced instruction, gifted programs, and the importance of earned success.

When it comes to kitchen table issues, conservatives can do much more to support parents. That means putting an end to chaotic classrooms. It means using the tax code to provide more financial assistance. It means making it easier and more appealing for employers to offer on-site daycare facilities. It means creating flexible-use spending accounts for both early childhood and K–12 students to support a wide range of educational options. It means pushing colleges to cut bloat and find ways to offer less costly credentials. This means offering meaningful career and technical options so that a college degree feels like a choice rather than a requirement, making it easier for new postsecondary options to emerge, and requiring colleges to have skin in the game when students take out loans (putting the schools on the hook if their students aren’t repaying taxpayers).

Then there’s the need to address the right’s frosty relationship with educators. It’s remarkable, if you think about it, that conservatives—who energetically support cops and have a natural antipathy for bureaucrats and red tape—have so much trouble connecting with teachers. Like police, teachers are  well-liked  local public servants frustrated by bureaucracy and paperwork. It should be easy to embrace discipline policies that keep teachers safe and classrooms manageable, downsize bloated bureaucracy and shift those dollars into classrooms, and tend to parental responsibilities as well as parental rights.  

There’s an enormous opportunities for the right to lead on education today. The question is whether we’re ready to rise to the challenge.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• Exclusive: Google Workers Revolt Over $1.2 Billion Contract With Israel
• Jane Fonda Champions Climate Action for Every Generation
• Stop Looking for Your Forever Home
• The Sympathizer Counters 50 Years of Hollywood Vietnam War Narratives
• The Bliss of Seeing the Eclipse From Cleveland
• Hormonal Birth Control Doesn’t Deserve Its Bad Reputation
• The Best TV Shows to Watch on Peacock
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

You May Also Like

School resource officer teaches students critical thinking skills for police interactions

SOUTH BEND — A decade ago, Jalen Lee played linebacker and running back for Washington High School 's football team.

Now, he patrols his alma mater's halls as its School Resource Officer, which he has done for the past two years. 

But he wants to be more than a cop to today's students: He wants to be a role model and teacher to them, just as Washington's SRO was to him when he was a Panther.

Lee, who attended Washington from 2012-2016, looks up to the past SROs as “giants with a magnitude and impact that can’t be measured,” he said.

“Washington High School has a long and rich history of School Resource Officers,” he said. “It’s a story that’s not really told. It’s my story.”

And he's put that story, from what he learned from the police officers he knew in his youth to what he learned during his first two years as a patrol officer with the South Bend Police Department , into his second book, “ Street Skills: a guide to master interactions with the police .”

Specifically, Lee names Eric Crittendon, David Herron, Brian Kendall, Antown Jones, Tomar Thomas and Anthony Pearson as officers who all influenced him and helped shape his career trajectory. He met them working with the  Police Athletic League  as a student.

“If it wasn’t for my School Resource Officer,” Lee said, referring to Anthony Pearson, “I probably would have never become a police officer.”  

Pearson remembers Lee as a bright young man who made his policing stronger. It was their interactions, Pearson said, that gave Lee an insight into what police do.  

“School Resource Officers have the power to change student lives,” Pearson said. “I think this is unlike any other position as a police officer, because you’re strictly dealing with minds that are moldable.”

Pearson, who has been working with the SBPD for over 20 years and has been in the South Bend Community School Corporation since 2004, he estimated, working at Washington, Riley High School and, currently, Adams High School , has seen previous students, like Lee, now take their place in South Bend’s community as teachers, police officers and parents. 

“Our conversations helped me be a better mentor because I had someone who was truly interested in what I did for a living,” Pearson said. “It was a no-brainer to jump on the train with him and push him forward to be doing even greater things that he’s doing now.” 

From football to public speaking

Those “greater things” for Lee included attending Ball State University , where he played football as a slot receiver. However, Lee’s trajectory shifted when he was cut from the team his freshman year.

“After that, I had no idea what I wanted to do,” Lee said. “I had been an athlete my whole life, and at the time, that was a key to my identity.” 

With football being “stripped away,” he had to find his next step. “What else do you do besides being a top athlete?” he asked.

Lee leaned into speaking, majoring in communications and keynote speaking and criminal justice. He wrote his first book while attending Ball State. During his junior and senior years, he averaged 150 speaking engagements, speaking in front of people and crafting easily digestible messages, he said. 

“Being from around here, I never heard of anyone who was a professional speaker and who did it as their job. It was an amazing time,” he said, “It showed me what I wanted to do.” 

Speaking engagements halted as the COVID-19 pandemic hit during Lee’s senior year. He had a full schedule of speaking engagements in 2020, but within a few weeks, they were canceled. 

Lee came home. 

“I utilized the second half of my degree and went into law enforcement,” he said.

Lee joined the South Bend Police Department in 2020, serving in the patrol division for his first two years.

After being on the streets and making a lot of arrests, he said, he began to question whether that was the right role for him within the department,

Incarcerations are a part of the job of being an officer, Lee said, but in the schools, there’s less of it. 

“The goal of an SRO is not to arrest kids,” he said. “We exercise discretion as an educator. It’s about working with these kids as we educate them about the decisions they're making and the consequences that come with those decisions.”

In 2022, Lee decided to return to Washington, which had been without an SRO for two years, and serve in the school. To him, it felt right.

“This is my place,” he said. “This is where I’m from.”

A return to writing and speaking

Students brought new life to his creative side. They reinvigorated him, he said, and brought back the fire of speaking and writing, which led to his second book, “Street Skills: a guide to master interactions with the police,” released on Feb. 11.

“I see the need of the students, because they come to me with that need,” Lee said. 

He provides scenario-based practices, based on his own experiences as an officer and questions he’s received from students he interacts with each day. 

“My experience and the things that I see are mine,” he said. 

The book takes the reader through five of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights: freedoms, petitions and assembly (Amendment 1), right to bear arms (Amendment 2), searches and arrests (Amendment 4), rights in criminal cases (Amendment 5), and right to a fair trial (Amendment 6).

The subtitle of the book, to master interactions with the police, Lee said, is so much more.

“There’s a lot our kids are dealing with,” he said. 

Some schools might be dealing with fighting or underage alcohol abuse, Lee said, adding that the program can be shaped and molded per the needs of each school district.

In addition to his book, Lee wrote a workbook to educate students about the criminal justice system. Through his company, Jalen Lee & Associates , he does public speaking within schools. 

He’s in negotiations with the South Bend Community School Corporation and Penn-Harris-Madison, he said, to provide his product and services to schools.

“Some schools are not equipped to teach these topics,” he said. “They have their standardized curriculum and a lot of these topics that we talk about don't really fall under the curriculum you need to graduate.”

For him, it’s important that students practice real life situations, so he provides a ratio of 30% content to 70% scenarios.

"The scenarios are the key," he said, "You can teach the content, but you have to make it real for students."

Scenario-based education

Lee said scenarios get students’ minds working and allow them to think more critically. This, he said, leads students to feeling more equipped. 

“We want to focus on students’ decision making and leadership skills,” Lee said. “It’s not necessarily about teaching students what their rights are but how to apply them.”

From his past interactions on patrol, Lee said, he learned that “if anxiety doesn’t get them, fear will. If fear doesn’t get them, then they’re overthinking it. When you feel trapped, you can’t listen to what I’m telling you to do.” 

He wants to pull students out of that frame of thinking by teaching them that they are allowed to think and respond to what’s happening. 

“Most times, if you can critically think, you can get through most situations. I’ve been in some of the most hostile situations and some of the least hostile,” he said. “In all of those situations, what really separates those is your ability to think and process.” 

Lee referenced his experience of pulling over a young African American male in a traffic stop in Chapter 5 of his book. 

“After speaking with the young man, he explained that he had never been pulled over before and he was extremely nervous to the point he began to cry,” Lee wrote in “Street Skills.” 

“He was literally shaking,” Lee said. “He paused me. This is not how our relationship is supposed to be.”

Lee said when an officer pulls over a car, they’re “in a position of dominance,” he said. “When I saw the emotions he was dealing with, I first asked myself, ‘What can I say to de-escalate him?’” 

He asked the young man to step out of the car and explained that being stopped for a minor traffic offense "is not the end of the world," even though he understands why people might view it as such.

“I’m not here to get you, rough you up, mistreat you or talk down to you,” Lee said he told the scared driver that day. “That’s why I pulled you out of the car, because I wanted to talk to you on level ground, eye-to-eye.” 

Lee said he took time to break down barriers between them.

“I knew at this moment," he wrote in "Street Skills," "I was given the power to change his reality and perception of the police. … I explained that the police are public servants at the core. We are here to serve, protect, and improve quality of life, not harass, abuse, or cause fear. I understand how we’ve gotten to this point where there’s an unhealthy fear toward police. I can’t change the history of the police and the public, but I can be intentional about how I treat the people I deal with daily to continually build the public’s trust in the police.”

“People view the police, sometimes, as this bigger-than-life person, or creature,” he said, “as a thing that’s ever-knowing or ever-powerful, but that’s not the reality. A lot of police interactions that we’ve seen in our society that have gone wrong, is because, most times, that police officer has human characteristics. Fear. Anxiety. Maybe, they didn’t make the best decision in a split second,” he said.

"Police are human,” Lee said but added that he doesn’t speak for anyone other than himself. 

He recalled getting pulled over when he was 16 and 17 years old. “I’m not naïve to why,” Lee said. “I’m a kid who grew up here on the west side.” 

However, contrary to the man he pulled over, Lee didn’t share the same perception of law enforcement. 

“I knew police officers,” he said, referring again to the rich history of a police presence at Washington High School. “Anthony Pearson showed me that all police weren’t like that.”

In his interaction with the young man, Lee endeavored “to show him that all police aren’t bad.” 

In his time with SBPD, working with everyone, he said, “It has nothing to do with skin tone. Good police officers come in all shapes, forms or sizes. There is no mold. It’s all based on who you are. What do you stand on? What are some of the morals and pillars that you lead your life with?”

Email Tribune staff writer Camille Sarabia at  [email protected] .  

Doha Declaration

Education for justice.

• Agenda Day 1
• Agenda Day 2
• Agenda Day 3
• Agenda Day 4
• Registration
• Breakout Sessions for Primary and Secondary Level
• Breakout Sessions for Tertiary Level
• E4J Youth Competition
• India - Lockdown Learners
• Chuka, Break the Silence
• The Online Zoo
• I would like a community where ...
• Staying safe online
• Let's be respectful online
• We can all be heroes
• Respect for all
• We all have rights
• A mosaic of differences
• The right thing to do
• Solving ethical dilemmas
• UNODC-UNESCO Guide for Policymakers
• UNODC-UNESCO Handbooks for Teachers
• Justice Accelerators
• Introduction
• Organized Crime
• Trafficking in Persons & Smuggling of Migrants
• Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice Reform
• Crime Prevention, Criminal Justice & SDGs
• UN Congress on Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice
• Commission on Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice
• Conference of the Parties to UNTOC
• Conference of the States Parties to UNCAC
• Rules for Simulating Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice Bodies
• Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice
• Engage with Us
• Contact Us about MUN
• Conferences Supporting E4J
• Cyberstrike
• Play for Integrity
• Running out of Time
• Zorbs Reloaded
• Developing a Rationale for Using the Video
• Previewing the Anti-Corruption Video
• Viewing the Video with a Purpose
• Post-viewing Activities
• Previewing the Firearms Video
• Rationale for Using the Video
• Previewing the Human Trafficking Video
• Previewing the Organized Crime Video
• Previewing the Video
• Criminal Justice & Crime Prevention
• Corruption & Integrity
• Human Trafficking & Migrant Smuggling
• Firearms Trafficking
• Terrorism & Violent Extremism
• Introduction & Learning Outcomes
• Corruption - Baseline Definition
• Effects of Corruption
• Deeper Meanings of Corruption
• Measuring Corruption
• Possible Class Structure
• Core Reading
• Advanced Reading
• Student Assessment
• Additional Teaching Tools
• Guidelines for Stand-Alone Course
• Appendix: How Corruption Affects the SDGs
• What is Governance?
• What is Good Governance?
• Corruption and Bad Governance
• Governance Reforms and Anti-Corruption
• Guidelines for Stand-alone Course
• Corruption and Democracy
• Corruption and Authoritarian Systems
• Hybrid Systems and Syndromes of Corruption
• The Deep Democratization Approach
• Political Parties and Political Finance
• Political Institution-building as a Means to Counter Corruption
• Manifestations and Consequences of Public Sector Corruption
• Causes of Public Sector Corruption
• Theories that Explain Corruption
• Corruption in Public Procurement
• Corruption in State-Owned Enterprises
• Responses to Public Sector Corruption
• Preventing Public Sector Corruption
• Forms & Manifestations of Private Sector Corruption
• Consequences of Private Sector Corruption
• Causes of Private Sector Corruption
• Responses to Private Sector Corruption
• Preventing Private Sector Corruption
• Collective Action & Public-Private Partnerships against Corruption
• Transparency as a Precondition
• Detection Mechanisms - Auditing and Reporting
• Whistle-blowing Systems and Protections
• Investigation of Corruption
• Introduction and Learning Outcomes
• Brief background on the human rights system
• Overview of the corruption-human rights nexus
• Impact of corruption on specific human rights
• Approaches to assessing the corruption-human rights nexus
• Human-rights based approach
• Defining sex, gender and gender mainstreaming
• Gender differences in corruption
• Theories explaining the gender–corruption nexus
• Gendered impacts of corruption
• Anti-corruption and gender mainstreaming
• Manifestations of corruption in education
• Costs of corruption in education
• Causes of corruption in education
• Fighting corruption in education
• Core terms and concepts
• The role of citizens in fighting corruption
• The role, risks and challenges of CSOs fighting corruption
• The role of the media in fighting corruption
• Access to information: a condition for citizen participation
• ICT as a tool for citizen participation in anti-corruption efforts
• Government obligations to ensure citizen participation in anti-corruption efforts
• Teaching Guide
• Brief History of Terrorism
• 19th Century Terrorism
• League of Nations & Terrorism
• United Nations & Terrorism
• Terrorist Victimization
• Exercises & Case Studies
• Radicalization & Violent Extremism
• Preventing & Countering Violent Extremism
• Drivers of Violent Extremism
• International Approaches to PVE &CVE
• Regional & Multilateral Approaches
• Defining Rule of Law
• UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy
• International Cooperation & UN CT Strategy
• Legal Sources & UN CT Strategy
• Regional & National Approaches
• International Legal Frameworks
• International Human Rights Law
• International Humanitarian Law
• International Refugee Law
• Current Challenges to International Legal Framework
• Defining Terrorism
• Criminal Justice Responses
• Treaty-based Crimes of Terrorism
• Core International Crimes
• International Courts and Tribunals
• African Region
• Inter-American Region
• Asian Region
• European Region
• Middle East & Gulf Regions
• Core Principles of IHL
• Categorization of Armed Conflict
• Classification of Persons
• IHL, Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism
• Relationship between IHL & intern. human rights law
• Limitations Permitted by Human Rights Law
• Derogation during Public Emergency
• Examples of States of Emergency & Derogations
• International Human Rights Instruments
• Regional Human Rights Instruments
• Extra-territorial Application of Right to Life
• Arbitrary Deprivation of Life
• Death Penalty
• Enforced Disappearances
• Armed Conflict Context
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• Convention against Torture et al.
• International Legal Framework
• Key Contemporary Issues
• Investigative Phase
• Trial & Sentencing Phase
• Armed Conflict
• Case Studies
• Special Investigative Techniques
• Surveillance & Interception of Communications
• Privacy & Intelligence Gathering in Armed Conflict
• Accountability & Oversight of Intelligence Gathering
• Principle of Non-Discrimination
• Freedom of Religion
• Freedom of Expression
• Freedom of Assembly
• Freedom of Association
• Fundamental Freedoms
• Definition of 'Victim'
• Effects of Terrorism
• Access to Justice
• Recognition of the Victim
• Human Rights Instruments
• Criminal Justice Mechanisms
• Instruments for Victims of Terrorism
• National Approaches
• Key Challenges in Securing Reparation
• Topic 1. Contemporary issues relating to conditions conducive both to the spread of terrorism and the rule of law
• Topic 2. Contemporary issues relating to the right to life
• Topic 3. Contemporary issues relating to foreign terrorist fighters
• Topic 4. Contemporary issues relating to non-discrimination and fundamental freedoms
• Module 16: Linkages between Organized Crime and Terrorism
• Thematic Areas
• Content Breakdown
• Module Adaptation & Design Guidelines
• Teaching Methods
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introducing United Nations Standards & Norms on CPCJ vis-à-vis International Law
• 2. Scope of United Nations Standards & Norms on CPCJ
• 3. United Nations Standards & Norms on CPCJ in Operation
• 1. Definition of Crime Prevention
• 2. Key Crime Prevention Typologies
• 2. (cont.) Tonry & Farrington’s Typology
• 3. Crime Problem-Solving Approaches
• 4. What Works
• United Nations Entities
• Regional Crime Prevention Councils/Institutions
• Key Clearinghouses
• Systematic Reviews
• 1. Introduction to International Standards & Norms
• 2. Identifying the Need for Legal Aid
• 3. Key Components of the Right of Access to Legal Aid
• 4. Access to Legal Aid for Those with Specific Needs
• 5. Models for Governing, Administering and Funding Legal Aid
• 6. Models for Delivering Legal Aid Services
• 7. Roles and Responsibilities of Legal Aid Providers
• 8. Quality Assurance and Legal Aid Services
• 1. Context for Use of Force by Law Enforcement Officials
• 2. Legal Framework
• 3. General Principles of Use of Force in Law Enforcement
• 4. Use of Firearms
• 5. Use of “Less-Lethal” Weapons
• 6. Protection of Especially Vulnerable Groups
• 7. Use of Force during Assemblies
• 1. Policing in democracies & need for accountability, integrity, oversight
• 2. Key mechanisms & actors in police accountability, oversight
• 3. Crosscutting & contemporary issues in police accountability
• 1. Introducing Aims of Punishment, Imprisonment & Prison Reform
• 2. Current Trends, Challenges & Human Rights
• 3. Towards Humane Prisons & Alternative Sanctions
• 1. Aims and Significance of Alternatives to Imprisonment
• 2. Justifying Punishment in the Community
• 3. Pretrial Alternatives
• 4. Post Trial Alternatives
• 5. Evaluating Alternatives
• 1. Concept, Values and Origin of Restorative Justice
• 2. Overview of Restorative Justice Processes
• 3. How Cost Effective is Restorative Justice?
• 4. Issues in Implementing Restorative Justice
• 1. Gender-Based Discrimination & Women in Conflict with the Law
• 2. Vulnerabilities of Girls in Conflict with the Law
• 3. Discrimination and Violence against LGBTI Individuals
• 4. Gender Diversity in Criminal Justice Workforce
• 1. Ending Violence against Women
• 2. Human Rights Approaches to Violence against Women
• 3. Who Has Rights in this Situation?
• 4. What about the Men?
• 5. Local, Regional & Global Solutions to Violence against Women & Girls
• 1. Understanding the Concept of Victims of Crime
• 2. Impact of Crime, including Trauma
• 3. Right of Victims to Adequate Response to their Needs
• 4. Collecting Victim Data
• 5. Victims and their Participation in Criminal Justice Process
• 6. Victim Services: Institutional and Non-Governmental Organizations
• 7. Outlook on Current Developments Regarding Victims
• 8. Victims of Crime and International Law
• 1. The Many Forms of Violence against Children
• 2. The Impact of Violence on Children
• 3. States' Obligations to Prevent VAC and Protect Child Victims
• 4. Improving the Prevention of Violence against Children
• 5. Improving the Criminal Justice Response to VAC
• 6. Addressing Violence against Children within the Justice System
• 1. The Role of the Justice System
• 2. Convention on the Rights of the Child & International Legal Framework on Children's Rights
• 3. Justice for Children
• 4. Justice for Children in Conflict with the Law
• 5. Realizing Justice for Children
• 1a. Judicial Independence as Fundamental Value of Rule of Law & of Constitutionalism
• 1b. Main Factors Aimed at Securing Judicial Independence
• 2a. Public Prosecutors as ‘Gate Keepers’ of Criminal Justice
• 2b. Institutional and Functional Role of Prosecutors
• 2c. Other Factors Affecting the Role of Prosecutors
• Basics of Computing
• Global Connectivity and Technology Usage Trends
• Cybercrime in Brief
• Cybercrime Trends
• Cybercrime Prevention
• Offences against computer data and systems
• Computer-related offences
• Content-related offences
• The Role of Cybercrime Law
• Harmonization of Laws
• International and Regional Instruments
• International Human Rights and Cybercrime Law
• Digital Evidence
• Digital Forensics
• Standards and Best Practices for Digital Forensics
• Reporting Cybercrime
• Who Conducts Cybercrime Investigations?
• Obstacles to Cybercrime Investigations
• Knowledge Management
• Legal and Ethical Obligations
• Handling of Digital Evidence
• Digital Evidence Admissibility
• Sovereignty and Jurisdiction
• Formal International Cooperation Mechanisms
• Informal International Cooperation Mechanisms
• Data Retention, Preservation and Access
• Challenges Relating to Extraterritorial Evidence
• National Capacity and International Cooperation
• Internet Governance
• Cybersecurity Strategies: Basic Features
• National Cybersecurity Strategies
• International Cooperation on Cybersecurity Matters
• Cybersecurity Posture
• Assets, Vulnerabilities and Threats
• Vulnerability Disclosure
• Cybersecurity Measures and Usability
• Situational Crime Prevention
• Incident Detection, Response, Recovery & Preparedness
• Privacy: What it is and Why it is Important
• Privacy and Security
• Cybercrime that Compromises Privacy
• Data Protection Legislation
• Data Breach Notification Laws
• Enforcement of Privacy and Data Protection Laws
• Intellectual Property: What it is
• Types of Intellectual Property
• Causes for Cyber-Enabled Copyright & Trademark Offences
• Protection & Prevention Efforts
• Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
• Cyberstalking and Cyberharassment
• Cyberbullying
• Gender-Based Interpersonal Cybercrime
• Interpersonal Cybercrime Prevention
• Cyber Organized Crime: What is it?
• Conceptualizing Organized Crime & Defining Actors Involved
• Criminal Groups Engaging in Cyber Organized Crime
• Cyber Organized Crime Activities
• Preventing & Countering Cyber Organized Crime
• Cyberespionage
• Cyberterrorism
• Cyberwarfare
• Information Warfare, Disinformation & Electoral Fraud
• Responses to Cyberinterventions
• Framing the Issue of Firearms
• Direct Impact of Firearms
• Indirect Impacts of Firearms on States or Communities
• International and National Responses
• Typology and Classification of Firearms
• Common Firearms Types
• 'Other' Types of Firearms
• Parts and Components
• History of the Legitimate Arms Market
• Need for a Legitimate Market
• Key Actors in the Legitimate Market
• Authorized & Unauthorized Arms Transfers
• Illegal Firearms in Social, Cultural & Political Context
• Supply, Demand & Criminal Motivations
• Larger Scale Firearms Trafficking Activities
• Smaller Scale Trafficking Activities
• Sources of Illicit Firearms
• Consequences of Illicit Markets
• International Public Law & Transnational Law
• International Instruments with Global Outreach
• Commonalities, Differences & Complementarity between Global Instruments
• Tools to Support Implementation of Global Instruments
• Other United Nations Processes
• The Sustainable Development Goals
• Multilateral & Regional Instruments
• Scope of National Firearms Regulations
• National Firearms Strategies & Action Plans
• Harmonization of National Legislation with International Firearms Instruments
• Assistance for Development of National Firearms Legislation
• Firearms Trafficking as a Cross-Cutting Element
• Organized Crime and Organized Criminal Groups
• Criminal Gangs
• Terrorist Groups
• Interconnections between Organized Criminal Groups & Terrorist Groups
• Gangs - Organized Crime & Terrorism: An Evolving Continuum
• International Response
• International and National Legal Framework
• Firearms Related Offences
• Role of Law Enforcement
• Firearms as Evidence
• Use of Special Investigative Techniques
• International Cooperation and Information Exchange
• Prosecution and Adjudication of Firearms Trafficking
• Teaching Methods & Principles
• Ethical Learning Environments
• Overview of Modules
• Module Adaption & Design Guidelines
• Table of Exercises
• Basic Terms
• Forms of Gender Discrimination
• Ethics of Care
• Case Studies for Professional Ethics
• Case Studies for Role Morality
• Additional Exercises
• Defining Organized Crime
• Definition in Convention
• Similarities & Differences
• Activities, Organization, Composition
• Thinking Critically Through Fiction
• Excerpts of Legislation
• Research & Independent Study Questions
• Legal Definitions of Organized Crimes
• Criminal Association
• Definitions in the Organized Crime Convention
• Criminal Organizations and Enterprise Laws
• Enabling Offence: Obstruction of Justice
• Drug Trafficking
• Wildlife & Forest Crime
• Counterfeit Products Trafficking
• Falsified Medical Products
• Trafficking in Cultural Property
• Trafficking in Persons
• Case Studies & Exercises
• Extortion Racketeering
• Loansharking
• Links to Corruption
• Bribery versus Extortion
• Money-Laundering
• Liability of Legal Persons
• How much Organized Crime is there?
• Alternative Ways for Measuring
• Measuring Product Markets
• Risk Assessment
• Key Concepts of Risk Assessment
• Risk Assessment of Organized Crime Groups
• Risk Assessment of Product Markets
• Risk Assessment in Practice
• Positivism: Environmental Influences
• Classical: Pain-Pleasure Decisions
• Structural Factors
• Ethical Perspective
• Crime Causes & Facilitating Factors
• Models and Structure
• Hierarchical Model
• Local, Cultural Model
• Enterprise or Business Model
• Groups vs Activities
• Networked Structure
• Jurisdiction
• Investigators of Organized Crime
• Controlled Deliveries
• Physical & Electronic Surveillance
• Undercover Operations
• Financial Analysis
• Use of Informants
• Rights of Victims & Witnesses
• Role of Prosecutors
• Adversarial vs Inquisitorial Legal Systems
• Mitigating Punishment
• Granting Immunity from Prosecution
• Witness Protection
• Aggravating & Mitigating Factors
• Sentencing Options
• Alternatives to Imprisonment
• Death Penalty & Organized Crime
• Backgrounds of Convicted Offenders
• Confiscation
• Confiscation in Practice
• Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA)
• Extradition
• Transfer of Criminal Proceedings
• Transfer of Sentenced Persons
• Module 12: Prevention of Organized Crime
• Adoption of Organized Crime Convention
• Historical Context
• Features of the Convention
• Related international instruments
• Conference of the Parties
• Roles of Participants
• Structure and Flow
• Recommended Topics
• Background Materials
• What is Sex / Gender / Intersectionality?
• Knowledge about Gender in Organized Crime
• Gender and Organized Crime
• Gender and Different Types of Organized Crime
• Definitions and Terminology
• Organized crime and Terrorism - International Legal Framework
• International Terrorism-related Conventions
• UNSC Resolutions on Terrorism
• Organized Crime Convention and its Protocols
• Theoretical Frameworks on Linkages between Organized Crime and Terrorism
• Typologies of Criminal Behaviour Associated with Terrorism
• Terrorism and Drug Trafficking
• Terrorism and Trafficking in Weapons
• Terrorism, Crime and Trafficking in Cultural Property
• Trafficking in Persons and Terrorism
• Intellectual Property Crime and Terrorism
• Kidnapping for Ransom and Terrorism
• Exploitation of Natural Resources and Terrorism
• Review and Assessment Questions
• Research and Independent Study Questions
• Criminalization of Smuggling of Migrants
• UNTOC & the Protocol against Smuggling of Migrants
• Offences under the Protocol
• Financial & Other Material Benefits
• Aggravating Circumstances
• Criminal Liability
• Non-Criminalization of Smuggled Migrants
• Scope of the Protocol
• Humanitarian Exemption
• Migrant Smuggling v. Irregular Migration
• Migrant Smuggling vis-a-vis Other Crime Types
• Other Resources
• Assistance and Protection in the Protocol
• International Human Rights and Refugee Law
• Vulnerable groups
• Positive and Negative Obligations of the State
• Identification of Smuggled Migrants
• Participation in Legal Proceedings
• Role of Non-Governmental Organizations
• Smuggled Migrants & Other Categories of Migrants
• Short-, Mid- and Long-Term Measures
• Criminal Justice Reponse: Scope
• Investigative & Prosecutorial Approaches
• Different Relevant Actors & Their Roles
• Testimonial Evidence
• Financial Investigations
• Non-Governmental Organizations
• ‘Outside the Box’ Methodologies
• Intra- and Inter-Agency Coordination
• Admissibility of Evidence
• International Cooperation
• Exchange of Information
• Non-Criminal Law Relevant to Smuggling of Migrants
• Administrative Approach
• Complementary Activities & Role of Non-criminal Justice Actors
• Macro-Perspective in Addressing Smuggling of Migrants
• Human Security
• International Aid and Cooperation
• Migration & Migrant Smuggling
• Mixed Migration Flows
• Social Politics of Migrant Smuggling
• Vulnerability
• Profile of Smugglers
• Role of Organized Criminal Groups
• Humanitarianism, Security and Migrant Smuggling
• Crime of Trafficking in Persons
• The Issue of Consent
• The Purpose of Exploitation
• The abuse of a position of vulnerability
• Indicators of Trafficking in Persons
• Distinction between Trafficking in Persons and Other Crimes
• Misconceptions Regarding Trafficking in Persons
• Root Causes
• Supply Side Prevention Strategies
• Demand Side Prevention Strategies
• Role of the Media
• Safe Migration Channels
• Crime Prevention Strategies
• Monitoring, Evaluating & Reporting on Effectiveness of Prevention
• Trafficked Persons as Victims
• Protection under the Protocol against Trafficking in Persons
• Broader International Framework
• State Responsibility for Trafficking in Persons
• Identification of Victims
• Principle of Non-Criminalization of Victims
• Criminal Justice Duties Imposed on States
• Role of the Criminal Justice System
• Current Low Levels of Prosecutions and Convictions
• Challenges to an Effective Criminal Justice Response
• Rights of Victims to Justice and Protection
• Potential Strategies to “Turn the Tide”
• State Cooperation with Civil Society
• Civil Society Actors
• The Private Sector
• Comparing SOM and TIP
• Differences and Commonalities
• Vulnerability and Continuum between SOM & TIP
• Labour Exploitation
• Forced Marriage
• Other Examples
• Children on the Move
• Protecting Smuggled and Trafficked Children
• Protection in Practice
• Children Alleged as Having Committed Smuggling or Trafficking Offences
• Basic Terms - Gender and Gender Stereotypes
• International Legal Frameworks and Definitions of TIP and SOM
• Global Overview on TIP and SOM
• Gender and Migration
• Key Debates in the Scholarship on TIP and SOM
• Gender and TIP and SOM Offenders
• Responses to TIP and SOM
• Use of Technology to Facilitate TIP and SOM
• Technology Facilitating Trafficking in Persons
• Technology in Smuggling of Migrants
• Using Technology to Prevent and Combat TIP and SOM
• Privacy and Data Concerns
• Emerging Trends
• Demand and Consumption
• Supply and Demand
• Implications of Wildlife Trafficking
• Legal and Illegal Markets
• Perpetrators and their Networks
• Locations and Activities relating to Wildlife Trafficking
• Environmental Protection & Conservation
• CITES & the International Trade in Endangered Species
• Organized Crime & Corruption
• Animal Welfare
• Criminal Justice Actors and Agencies
• Criminalization of Wildlife Trafficking
• Challenges for Law Enforcement
• Investigation Measures and Detection Methods
• Prosecution and Judiciary
• Wild Flora as the Target of Illegal Trafficking
• Purposes for which Wild Flora is Illegally Targeted
• How is it Done and Who is Involved?
• Consequences of Harms to Wild Flora
• Terminology
• Background: Communities and conservation: A history of disenfranchisement
• Incentives for communities to get involved in illegal wildlife trafficking: the cost of conservation
• Incentives to participate in illegal wildlife, logging and fishing economies
• International and regional responses that fight wildlife trafficking while supporting IPLCs
• Mechanisms for incentivizing community conservation and reducing wildlife trafficking
• Critiques of community engagement
• Other challenges posed by wildlife trafficking that affect local populations

Global Podcast Series

• Apr. 2021: Call for Expressions of Interest: Online training for academics from francophone Africa
• Feb. 2021: Series of Seminars for Universities of Central Asia
• Dec. 2020: UNODC and TISS Conference on Access to Justice to End Violence
• Nov. 2020: Expert Workshop for University Lecturers and Trainers from the Commonwealth of Independent States
• Oct. 2020: E4J Webinar Series: Youth Empowerment through Education for Justice
• Interview: How to use E4J's tool in teaching on TIP and SOM
• E4J-Open University Online Training-of-Trainers Course
• Teaching Integrity and Ethics Modules: Survey Results

Grants Programmes

• E4J MUN Resource Guide
• Library of Resources
• {{item.name}} ({{item.items.length}}) items
• Add new list

Tertiary Education

Through the Education for Justice (E4J) initiative, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has co-created and jointly developed a series of peer-reviewed university modules and other tools with academics to assist them in teaching on some of today's most crucial threats. Specifically, E4J aims to support tertiary level educators and academics in their efforts to transmit knowledge and create a deeper understanding of rule of law related issues, with a focus on the subject areas of crime prevention and criminal justice, anti-corruption, organized crime, trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, firearms, cybercrime, wildlife crime, counter-terrorism as well as integrity and ethics. More than 600 academics and national experts from more than 550 universities and 114 countries contributed to the development of the university module series and participated in related activities. Since its inception, E4J has brought together more than 1,700 lecturers to support them in their efforts to teach on SDG 16 and rule of law related topics. In addition, several partners actively support E4J in the dissemination and translation of modules in various languages in order to make them accessible to a diverse and global audience.

The university modules are designed for use as either stand-alone teaching resources, or as a means of enhancing existing courses in criminology, law, political science, international relations, sociology, and many other disciplines. A “pick and choose” approach allows for lecturers to seamlessly fit them into current syllabi. Alternatively, lectures can use the “create your own course” feature and combine modules form different thematic areas to suit their needs.

Open source and available for free, we invite academics to use the E4J materials, provide us with feedback and link up to our E4J network to find out how the UN and academia can work together closer. Let's join forces in shaping tomorrow's leaders and empowering the next generation to tackle the most pressing global challenges posed by crime and help to achieve SDG 16, more just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

Terms of Use and Disclaimers for University Modules

University module series

• Integrity and Ethics
• Anti- Corruption
• Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice
• Trafficking in Persons & Smuggling of Migrants
• Wildlife Crime
• Counter-Terrorism

Create Your Own Course

This feature allows lecturers to assemble their own course by choosing and combining elements from various E4J university modules, in full or in part, covering different topic areas in line with their needs.

E4J’s Global Podcast Series “Voices of Academia” brings together leading “voices” from academic institutions around the world to explore the important role of higher education in promoting the SDGs and shaping policy discussion on issues affecting us all. 

Acknowledging the important role academia has in fostering sustainable development, E4J actively supports higher education institutions wanting to become hubs for rule of law & SDG 16 teaching as well as young scholars who do research on topics related to SDG 16.

Events, calls and stories

Here you can find information on past and upcoming events, calls, opportunities and webstories related to the various topic areas of the E4J university modules series.

E4J's grants help universities engage students on more advanced rule of law issues

The global pandemic has greatly affected education around the world, posing new challenges and exposing disparities even further. For Education for Justice (E4J), this was a year of redoubling efforts to ensure consistency in support to academics and educators on teaching rule of law and related topics. These creative and systematic efforts, building up on an already diverse portfolio of educational material and forming bridges between different stakeholders to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), have earned E4J the Secretary General's 2020 Innovation Award .

UNODC's E4J initiative receives Secretary-General 2020 Innovation Award

The responsibility of preparing the next generation to become tomorrow's fulfilled citizens, policymakers and leaders is one that UNODC's Education for Justice (E4J) initiative takes very seriously. This month, it has been recognized by Secretary-General António Guterres and awarded his 2020 Secretary-General Award in the category 'Innovation.'

"Every year, it is my honour to recognize inspiring and exemplary work of Secretariat staff members who have contributed above and beyond the call of duty or advanced projects with great impact and innovative potential," said Mr. Guterres. "In the 'Innovation' category, we honour the Education for Justice initiative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for directly engaging children, youth, teachers and academics."

Integrating gender perspectives into education: Why it matters for education on the rule of law

The need for gender equality and parity is a topic that has gained much exposure in the last years in the public and private sectors. For Education for Justice (E4J), these concepts must be engrained from very early on in a child's education, and they must be sustained throughout the years. In order to achieve positive results on this front, girls and boys must understand the importance of their respective roles in contributing to a fairer society.

Education in this context also importantly highlights how to prevent all forms of discrimination and violence related to gender, and it can strengthen crime prevention all over the world by planting the seeds of understanding from a young age. Education, and in particular E4J's resources, can also prepare the next generation to come of age as champions of gender equality, challenging discrimination and ending all forms of violence, by effecting changes in law, policy and practice.

E4J's Global Dialogue Series: reimagining education for a more just world

Had it not been for the COVID-19 global pandemic, UNODC's headquarters would have been swarming this past week with academics, educators, experts, and representatives from international organizations and multinational corporations for the largest conference ever held under United Nations auspices to discuss the crucial link between education and the rule of law.

Instead, over 2,100 participants from 109 countries gathered virtually, and safely, for the unprecedented  Global Dialogue Series launched by  UNODC's Education for Justice (E4J) initiative on 1 December, debating the forward-looking perspectives ensuing from the pandemic to reimagine education for peaceful, just, and inclusive societies.

Reimagining education for a more just world: inspire, change, together

From 1-4 December, UNODC is hosting the Education for Justice (E4J) Global Dialogue Series. More than 35 online interactive panels will discuss how the international education community is working towards teaching justice and rule of law issues, with inspiration from innovative approaches from around the world to ensure that learning never stops even during a global pandemic.

Join E4J and see how the UN is reimagining education for a more just world, and inspiring change together.

Supported by the State of Qatar

60 years crime congress.