Técnicas de recolección de datos

In reflecting on this research study, there were several questions that remain: What role does the identity of the facilitator play in the perception of fairness by the participant? How do facilitators determine where students are in terms of their moral development and how do they work with students to move from one level to another? What cultural competencies do the facilitators hold when facilitating bias related restorative processes? How do current institutional

and social systemic structures limit the ability for restorative justice to be effective on college and university campuses? How has the perception of the campus climate changed as a result of the introduction of restorative justice and restorative practices? In the next section, I provide some key points on these questions for possible future research.

Identity of the facilitator

The role of the facilitator and their skill set is of particular importance when it comes to any facilitation of conflict. Beyond skill sets what role does the identity of the facilitator play in the acceptance of the facilitator by the harmed and responsible parties? It is of particular interest when considering the nature of the type of cases I was exploring in the current study. Bias incidents require a level of understanding and care for both parties. Harmed parties want to seek justice for how they were wronged and in order to receive that, the person facilitating that justice has to understand where the harm comes from. The responsible party will require a person who can see them as worthwhile and cared for with patience to allow them to come to their own understanding of how their behavior impacts others regardless of their intention. Building rapport is an essential part of the pre-conference process however not much has been discussed about what role the social identity of the facilitator plays in building that rapport. Building rapport is about building trust. This process is designed to set a tone for what the conference will look like; this process is supposed to break down barriers that would make it hard for the harmed party and responsible party to communicate with one another but is that possible if one or both of the parties do not have trust in the facilitator.

The facilitator is supposed to solicit and listen to their stories to identify needs and harms but if one or both of the parties do not trust the facilitator or the institution not all of the needs will be met and either party, but particularly the harmed party, could leave the process

able to articulate this to the harmed and responsible party. Pope et al. (2004) defined multicultural competence as “awareness, knowledge, and skills that are needed to work

effectively across cultural groups and to work with complex diversity issues” (p. xiv). The role of identity rarely came up in this current study and the results of this future study could inform restorative justice practitioners about what additional pre-conference work may need to be executed to facilitate trust or what steps could be taken to improve the perception of facilitator competence and satisfaction with the restorative process.

Moral development stages

One question that is presented in this research that is not answered appears in form of moral development formation. Kohlberg argues that morality is determined by factors ranging from avoiding punishment to a social obligations (Kohlberg, 1985). The role of the facilitator is to make a determination as to what influences a participant to engage in moral behavior and how readily participants are to accept accountability. Two additional research studies could be

conducted to considering models of moral development. The first could be to understand where participants fall in the moral development stages and where those participants fall in relation to their ability to accept accountability. Second, research could be conducted to understand how facilitators make the determination on where participants are in the stages of moral development and how they progress participants, when needed, from one stage to another through the

preconference process to help participants accept accountability and to understand the social obligation in accountability rather than as a form of punishment.

Institutional and social structures

Rooted in indigenous practices, restorative justice is often described in an “unequivocally positive– even idealized–light; as an exclusively benign and unquestionably progressive

satisfactory closure” (Cunneen & Goldson, 2015, p. 139). What this idea fails to consider is the nature of community in indigenous roots in comparison to contemporary Western cultures and the culture of schools. Schools are typically grounded in a liberal individualistic paradigm that is hierarchical and places a special emphasis on consequences which make the implementation of restorative process at the institutional level increasingly difficult (Vaandering, 2014), a vastly different structure than the restorative paradigm. Robert concluded his interview by stating

I will say the train has left the station. The RJ train is long gone from the station. Yeah, this is probably a big one, and I’m gonna borrow from the late Dennis Maloney. This is an ancient idea whose time has come. I love it. Sometimes, when we talk about RJ, we talk about it like it’s new. Indigenous peoples from around the world have been doing this for thousands of years. Our ancestors, and current communities around the world. This is not a new thing. This is an example of the western world sometimes co-opting these principles. So I think every time we talk about this stuff, we have to acknowledge its inherent roots and varieties, and lots of different forms around the world.

It is vital that as restorative justice makes it way further onto college and university campuses that there is an assessment of the campus culture and how as a part of the Western culture the campus may not be structured to embrace restorative justice fully.

Cunneen and Goldson (2015) argue structural divisions in regards to race, class, gender, etc. may inadvertently exclude individuals from restorative practices “because they are without a community or without the right community” (p.147). So the underlining question becomes who is seen as deserving restorative processes and who gets to be forgiven. What types of cases does the campus put forward as good candidates for restorative justice? Harmed parties could see the use of restorative practices as yet other opportunity to let the responsible party, often a person

coming from a privileged position in relation to the incident, off easy. Furthermore, often judicial processes have disadvantaged historically marginalized individuals. Restorative processes are intended to correct the perceived shortcomings of the judicial process (Cunneen & Goldson, 2015). However, if co-opted by traditional judicial systems or the cultural environment of the campus lends opportunity for forgiveness to some populations more than others then an unfair or biased process may develop that favors students who mirror dominate culture.

Campus Climate

One of the goals of this study was to understand if the use of restorative practices would change the campus ethos. While the facilitators could point to both formal and informal

evaluations that indicate the student participants found the process to be worthwhile, they were unable to assert if any paradigm shifts have been made in the understanding of the model or any changes in the campus climate. As the model is relatively new and many of the facilitators are in the first few years of their positions it is hard to analyze the restorative model’s impact on campus climate.

Future research would be needed to review campus climate surveys and review if there are any positive gains in the perception of the campus climate in correlation with the emergence of the restorative model to the campus. Additionally, future research could review how well the model is known on campus and analyze if the visibility and awareness of the model correlate with the perception of campus climate. Part of the perception of campus climate is determined by how students view the campus response to incidents of bias, hate, and microaggressions thus the research question might be: Do those who have an awareness of the model have a more positive perception of the campus climate? The results from this study would inform higher education administrators how restorative practices are if at all, changing the ethos of the campus.