RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AND THE EQUITY MATRIX: BRIDGING THE DISCIPLINE GAP
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This research study aimed to examine current school discipline practices and offer a potential solution for creating more equitable discipline systems. Specifically, it explored the effectiveness of an Equity Matrix tool designed by Van Hesteren (2018), which is grounded in culturally responsive, anti-oppressive practices. The study aimed to determine if the Equity Matrix tool can be used to anticipate and respond to the causes of students’ challenging behaviour. The work was guided by the following research questions: 1) How can school leaders address inequities that students experience with school discipline? 2) What is the experience of school leaders with addressing the root cause of inequities in school discipline? 3) What is the experience of school leaders with the Equity Matrix as a tool for responding to student discipline? 4) How can the Equity Matrix make school leaders’ response to student discipline restorative? \nThe project used Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR), an approach that allows those who experienced the issue to be the main participants in solving the issue. This approach was impactful because it allowed me to work with school leaders as they gathered data and used the findings and subsequent research cycles to carry out context-specific professional development and improve practice. Another benefit of CPAR is that it can impact change within as little as one school year. The data collected was from interviews and focus group discussions. These participants were school leaders who had relevant experience and knowledge of school discipline policies and practice. \nFindings revealed that the Equity Matrix tool was impactful because it enabled participants to view school discipline through another paradigm and also helped remove barriers for students who were falling through the cracks. There was significant shift for school leaders who reframed their thinking from a deficit orientation blaming students’ character or their families to taking responsibility by adjusting factors within the school environment that were not traditionally considered to support students’ academic achievement. On a larger scale this study increased students’ sense of psychological safety and belonging, contributing to an overall positive school environment. \nThis research provided a framework that addressed the existing challenges within school discipline and advocated for a restorative approach using the Equity Matrix tool. It also provided a powerful approach to school discipline that supported equity, fairness, and student well-being. This study supported the need for Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppressive Administrative Procedures to be developed in Saskatchewan. It also highlighted the need for school division discipline policies to be revised from punitive to restorative. The Equity Matrix tool is a practical solution in addressing systemic inequities that marginalized learners experience and demonstrated potential in closing the achievement gap for all learners.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.019 | 0.023 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.023 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.013 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.029 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".