Addressing Students’ Deviant Behavior Through Healing Circles: Indispensable for Restorative Justice in Education

Abstract

Restorative justice is an enabling tool for retaining students in an educational institution profusely for deep learning, gaining knowledge and wisdom, and developing critical life skills. This study addresses students' deviant behavior through healing circles, which is indispensable for restorative justice in education. Healing circles is the successful implementation of restorative justice in education. The syllabus must include topics and contents related to enhancing restorative justice education among students’ deviant behavior, which needs to be improved primarily in our educational system. The research was a descriptive survey consisting of a simple random sampling of 213 prospective teachers from 6 teacher education institutions under the Baba Saheb Ambedkar Education University and Indira Gandhi National Tribal University selected as a sample for this study. The researchers developed a questionnaire on attitudes toward restorative justice in education meant for students’ deviant behavior resolution by the prospective teachers, which was validated with the help of experts. This study used descriptive and inferential statistics, such as independent sample t-test and ANOVA, to analyze the data. The reliability test of the developed tool was found to be 0.801 using Cronbach’s Alpha. The results reveal that most prospective teachers have a high level of attitude towards students' deviant behavior resolution through healing circles. A significant variation exists in the attitude of prospective teachers towards students’ deviant behavior resolution through healing circles for restorative justice in education based on the locale at 0.05 level. However, a significant variation does not exist in the attitude of prospective teachers towards students' deviant behavior resolution through healing circles for restorative justice in education based on gender and type of institutions at the 0.05 level.