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Abstract
In recent years restorative practice in schools has been heralded as a new paradigm for thinking about student behaviour. Its premise is to provide solutions to indiscipline, to restore relationships where there has been conflict or harm, and to give pupils a language with which to understand wrongdoing. This article offers a critique of practitioners’ use of scripts with which to facilitate the restorative conference, one of the key strategies of restorative practice. To do so I turn to J.L. Austin and Stanley Cavell whose writing on performative and passionate utterance point to the educational importance of making room for freedom in speech and emotion, over performance. Indeed, it is through making room for negative emotion, or silence, as observed in Cavell’s reading of King Lear, that we can see an opening up of the possibilities present in restorative practice.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the participants of the Institute of Education, UCL/Laboratory for Education and Society, KU Leuven doctoral colloquium (May 2015) for their valuable feedback on an earlier version of this article.
Notes
1. For many years, schools have predominantly employed behaviour policies influenced by the rules, praise, and consequence (RPC) frameworks that forms the basis of Assertive Discipline (Canter and Canter Citation1992) and Positive Discipline. By taking responsibility and having her classroom needs met, the assertive teacher stays in control of her pupils. Pupils, meanwhile, learn motivation through praise and the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. The popularity of these strategies lies in providing a clear and easily codified framework for managing pupil behaviour based on all, or most, of the following: (1) develop a clear set of classroom rules; (2) use a high rate of rule-related praise; (3) ignore minor infringements of the rules where appropriate; (4) use rule related reprimands; (5) emphasise the role of ‘choice’ – punishments must be consequences (Warren et al. Citation2006).
2. The justification of restorative precedents in modern restorative justice has resulted in the latter acquiring the status of ‘taken for granted truths’ (Daly Citation2002). The debunking of these claims is based upon highly problematic assumptions within the literature that assumes universality of values among aboriginal populations, with little recognition of different socio-political or historical contexts. Moreover, normalising modern restorative justice as ‘indigenous’ practice, presents governments with normalised procedure in which to respond to indigenous offenders. This leads to a hastening and acceptance of the implementation of government development programmes in minority groups, which can result in unfair or inaccurate use.
3. Mediation requires both parties to (1) Name the wrong done; (2) Describe how both parties have been personally affected by the crime; (3) To speak about the material and emotional harm; (4) To resolve together how best to repair the harm; (5) To prevent its recurrence (Marshall Citation2007, 4).
4. Family Group Conferencing is a formal, family-led conference with professionals and other advocates to help families plan and make decisions for their own welfare (Drewery and Kecskemeti Citation2010).
5. The conference facilitator, sometime known as the mediator, is responsible for bringing all parties to the conference. She will have previously had the opportunity to hear the stories of all of the participants and will hold the responsibility of organising the conference schedule and seating arrangements. In addition, facilitators also ensure the conference process unfolds according to the desired outcomes which may be pre-determined by school staff (Thorsborne and Vinegrad Citation2008).
6. It is acknowledged within the literature that the borrowing of terms from the criminal justice system such as ‘victim’ and ‘offender’ is generally inappropriate within the school context (McCluskey et al. ‘I was dead restorative today,’ Citation2008b). However, I have adopted the use of consistent terminology in order to aid my discussion.
7. As well as producing handbooks, resources and guidance for those working in the restorative field, the RJC has developed accreditation mechanisms, for individuals and larger organisations. Known as the Restorative Service Quality Mark (RSQM), these standards set out the requirements for the delivery of a high quality service. Valid for three years, the RSQM is stated to give the public confidence in the provision on offer while use of the trophy, certificate and RJC logo provide proof for commissioners and funders of a quality service.
8. The term ‘technoligization of discourse’ has been used to talk about the way in which discursive practices are intentionally shifted to engineer social change (Fairclough Citation1995).
9. Here is Austin’s definition of performatives: (A) They do not describe or report or constate anything at all, are not ‘true or false’. (B) The uttering of the sentence is, or is a part of, the doing of an action, which again would not normally be described as, or as ‘just’, saying something (Austin Citation1975, 5).
10. Austin states there are ‘many senses in which to say something is to do something, or in saying something we do something and even by saying something we do something’ (Austin Citation1975, 94).
11. Thorsborne and Vinegrad suggest the following phrase: ‘you can leave the conference at any time you like, but if you do, you need to know that what you did will be handled differently by the school. Do you understand this?’ (Thorsborne and Vinegrad Citation2008, 34).
12. Cavell draws on opera for his examples claiming that this is where passionate utterance has its cultural apotheosis (Cavell Citation2005).
13. I am very grateful to an anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft of this paper for helping to clarify the important implications of denying negative emotion in education.
14. Cavell considers this issue of voicelessness, ventriloquism and the forcing of voice in greater depth in his readings of Hollywood film (Cavell Citation1996).
15. I refer here to Henry David Thoreau’s account of his borrowing an axe from a neighbour in order to chop wood and build his hut. His returning of the axe, sharper than when he first borrowed it, is shown by Cavell to be an allegory for the way in which we use language. The casual bandying of words or constant, unthinking repetition of a script is to dull the axe’s blade. However, to really consider language, to revitalise its meaning or to do or take something new from reading, is to sharpen it. Our responsibility to keep on sharpening the axe, is the responsibility we have to our community of language (Thoreau Citation1854/1999).