Troya Lopez, Valeria; (2018) Restorative Justice and Emotional Literacy: Using Restorative Conversation as a Targeted Intervention for Students who get involved in Peer Conflict: A Multiple Base Line Design. Doctoral thesis (D.Ed.Psy), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Restorative Justice (RJ) has its origins in the criminal justice system and in recent years has received growing interest as an alternative method for classroom management and behaviour in schools. RJ sees misbehaviour as a breach to people’s relationships rather than school’s rules thereby puts repairing those relationships as more important than blaming and punishing the wrong doing. RJ is based on the premise that most people care about others and are interested in forming healthy and long lasting relationships. However, for this to happen people need a certain level of understanding and control over their own emotions and those of others. Hence this thesis aimed to explore the fields of RJ and Emotional Literacy (EL) skills independently despite being conceptually linked through the management and understanding of emotions and how this eventually may have an impact in students’ behaviour. The Review Paper consists of a systematic review of the literature on the effectiveness of Emotional literacy interventions in schools. Even though there is already a large amount of research on social emotional learning programmes, this review is the first of its type to explore EL skills as a separate construct from social skills. Thirteen studies were evaluated. Overall the findings shown a pattern of small and at times non-existent effect sizes. In other words, the impact of EL interventions was found to be limited in promoting students’ EL skills only. However, similarly to other reviews’ outcomes, other areas such as social skills, academic achievement and behavioural difficulties showed significant improvements suggesting that EL interventions are still worth investing in. Recommendations on how to improve the efficiency of the interventions is discussed. The Empirical Paper aimed to explore the impact that an abbreviated version of the RJ conference called Restorative Conversation had in reducing peer conflict incidents and promoting pro-social behaviour in five primary school students. A single case experimental study with multiple baselines was used to analyse visual data obtained from students’ behaviour. Overall, the intervention showed a decreasing trend in peer conflict incidents in four of the five participants, however, only two of these results were found to be statistically significant. In relation to pro-social behaviour, the intervention appeared to yield contradictory results such as two significant but negative effects were found. Fidelity of the implementation was maintained, suggesting the intervention is appropriate for delivery in school settings. Recommendations and implications for future research and discussion of the limitations are considered.

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