Leveraging Restorative Practices Through Cultural Responsiveness

Increasingly, restorative practices (RP) are used to address the harms that interrupt the relationships of people as individuals. However, restorative practice is seldom used to treat the damages resulting from systemic disparities. Nor is it used to recognize the original patterns of communalism already embedded within the value structure of African-American and Latino American culture. These missed opportunities overlook using the pre-existing cultural assets of learners of color to develop Restorative Approaches for addressing the cause(s) of systemic inequity.