UC San Diego

For over four decades, restorative justice has gained momentum as a viable alternative to punitive discipline in U.S. K-12 schools. Although school-based restorative practices research in is still emerging, studies have shown promise in school systems (Ashley & Burke, 2009). Likewise, restorative approaches, namely the use of restorative community conferencing in the U.S. juvenile justice system (Bazemore & Schiff, 2015; Rodriguez, 2007) is showing promising results in decreasing the criminalization of youth. Propelled by the school-to-prison pipeline, restorative community conferencing offers a paradigmatic shift in how justice is viewed, understood, and pursued. The restorative philosophy requires a belief that justice should be healing, which is achieved by attending to the relationship between the person responsible for the harm, the person harmed, and the community relationships (Van Ness & Strong, 2010; Zehr, 2015). Despite the emergence of restorative justice studies with a focus on recidivism rates, experiences of racially minoritized youth have not yet been explored. Black youth are historically underserved yet overrepresented in exclusionary practices, despite an absence of evidence of improved outcomes (Okilwa & Robert, 2017). Through examination of the lived experiences and stories of Black young adults, this phenomenological study will employ critical race theory and ecological system theory as a dual lens to understand what is good and successful about restorative community conferencing.Keywords: Black students, appreciative inquiry, critical race theory, juvenile justice, K-12, restorative justice, phenomenology, school-to-prison pipeline.