An Examination of Restorative Interventions and Racial Equity in Out-of-School Suspensions
Abstract
Districts have been engaged in efforts to reduce “differential processing” of discipline-referred students based on their racial backgrounds. They strive for fair assignment of exclusionary consequences across racial groups. The current study examines discipline records for one academic year in an urban school district (N = 9,039 discipline-referred students) to identify the factors associated with equitable assignment of out-of-school suspension (OSS). Multilevel logistic regression found that student participation in restorative interventions substantially reduced the odds that individual students received OSS. However, such participation was only marginally associated with more comparable assignment of OSS to Black students relative to their White peers. Together these findings suggest that alternatives to suspension, such as restorative interventions, may yield benefits for all student groups, but they may result in only marginal narrowing of the disparities in suspension rates between Black and White students. This indicates that greater attention is needed to address the inequitable school contexts in which disparities arise.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Quantitative studies on restorative practices have generally shown that restorative practices use is related to lower suspensions.
“Quantitative (descriptive or correlational) studies on RP have generally shown that RP use is related to lower suspensions (Anyon et al., 2016; Gregory et al., 2018)”
From The Impact of Restorative Practices on the Use of Out-of-School Suspensions: Results from a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial (2023) · cites this paper as Gregory et al., 2018
Cites
Hosmer, D. W., Lemeshow, S., & Sturdivant, R. X. (2013) · Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics · doi:10.1002/9781118548387 · Cited by 13,861 · see citing works
The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Gregory, A., Skiba, R. J., & Noguera, P. A. (2010) · Educational Researcher · doi:10.3102/0013189x09357621 · Cited by 1,395 · see citing works
Self-citationThe essence of innocence: Consequences of dehumanizing Black children.
Goff, P. A., Jackson, M. C., Di Leone, B. A. L., Culotta, C. M., & DiTomasso, N. A. (2014) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0035663 · Cited by 1,134 · see citing works
Skiba, R. J., Chung, C.-G., Trachok, M., Baker, T. L., Sheya, A., & Hughes, R. L. (2014) · American Educational Research Journal · doi:10.3102/0002831214541670 · Cited by 691 · see citing works
Racial Threat and Punitive School Discipline
Welch, K., & Payne, A. A. (2010) · Social Problems · doi:10.1525/sp.2010.57.1.25 · Cited by 445 · cited 1× · see citing works
“We also included the percentage of Black students enrolled, given prior research demonstrating that schools with a greater percentage of Black students are more likely to issue suspension to students than schools with a smaller percentage of Black students (Skiba et al., 2014; Welch & Payne, 2010).”
Result
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Kearney, C. A., Gonzálvez, C., Graczyk, P. A., & Fornander, M. J. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02222 · Cited by 130 · see citing works
“…that include greater proximity to school could involve sanctions such as in-school suspension and school-based community service as well as restorative practices such as mentoring and remediation of academic difficulties (Haight et al., 2014; McNeill et al., 2016; Gregory et al., 2018).”
BackgroundEffectiveness of restorative justice in US K-12 schools: A review of quantitative research
Darling-Hammond, S., Fronius, T. A., Sutherland, H., Guckenburg, S., Petrosino, A., & Hurley, N. (2020) · Contemporary School Psychology · doi:10.1007/s40688-020-00290-0 · Cited by 107 · see citing works
Mind the Gap: A Systematic Review of Research on Restorative Practices in Schools
Zakszeski, B., & Rutherford, L. (2021) · School Psychology Review · doi:10.1080/2372966x.2020.1852056 · Cited by 86 · see citing works
Rodriguez, L. A., & Welsh, R. O. (2022) · AERA Open · doi:10.1177/23328584221083669 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Fostering Belonging, Transforming Schools: The Impact of Restorative Practices
Darling-Hammond, S. (2023) · Learning Policy Institute · doi:10.54300/169.703 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“…research teams reviewing outcomes in Denver Public Schools following districtwide implementation of restorative programming have noted marked and sustained declines in exclusionary discipline rates, both overall and for subcategories of students (Baker, 2009; González, 2015; Gregory et al., 2018).”
BackgroundInfluentialLiu, J., Penner, E. K., & Gao, W. (2023) · Educational Researcher · doi:10.3102/0013189x231179649 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
KERVICK, C. T., MOORE, M., BALLYSINGH, T. A., GARNETT, B. R., & SMITH, L. C. (2019) · Harvard Educational Review · doi:10.17763/1943-5045-89.4.588 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Administering Discipline: An examination of the factors shaping school discipline practices
Welsh, R. O. (2024) · Education and Urban Society · doi:10.1177/00131245231208170 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“These findings support those of prior studies highlighting relationship building was a central strategy to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline (Anyon, Atteberry-Ash et al., 2018; Gregory et al., 2018).”
Huang, F. L., Gregory, A., & Ward-Seidel, A. R. (2023) · Prevention Science · doi:10.1007/s11121-023-01507-3 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Self-citationLea, C. H., Salazar, M. E., Huerta, A. H., Sardesai, T., & Edwards, K. T. (2025) · Theory Into Practice · doi:10.1080/00405841.2025.2503301 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
School‐Based Interventions for Reducing Disciplinary School Exclusion. An Updated Systematic Review
Valdebenito, S., Gaffney, H., Arosemena‐Burbano, M. J., Hitchcock, S., Jolliffe, D., & Sutherland, A. (2025) · Campbell Systematic Reviews · doi:10.1002/cl2.70063 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gregory, A., Huang, F. L., Anyon, Y., Greer, E., & Downing, B.
- Affiliations
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- University of Missouri (US)
- University of Denver (US)
- Denver Public Schools (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gregory, Anne
- Venue
- School Psychology Review
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-06
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 167-182
- ISSN
- 0279-6015 (ISSN-L)
- 2372-966X
- OpenAlex
- W2808227824
- Cited by
- 127
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 42.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- School Psychology Review (publishedVersion)
- Digital Commons - DU (University of Denver) (submittedVersion)
- San José State University ScholarWorks (San Jose State University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Education Discipline and Inequality
- Social Sciences › Law › Legal Issues in Education
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Behavioral and Psychological Studies
- Keywords
- restorative interventions, out-of-school suspension, racial equity, student discipline, differential processing, black-white disparities, alternatives to suspension, urban school districts, exclusionary discipline
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
