NCID-1987
Hilary Lustick
Assistant Professor in the College of Fine Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
University of Massachusetts at Lowell
Education/Degree:
1 Educational Leadership (New York University)
About
Dr. Lustick is in her second year of her current position, but she has been teaching Higher Education courses related to gender, race, special education, and equity issues in education for the last six years. Her research areas include the impact of restorative justice practices on the racial discipline gap. While restorative justice practices have gotten increasingly popular in the last ten years, few scholars have taken a critical approach; in 2016, her dissertation was one of the first. This interest in restorative justice has continued in a range of studies. Dr. Lustick has found that, even when school leaders and teachers share a commitment to reducing the schools to prison pipeline, a combination of social and institutional factors make it difficult not to maintain punitive discipline. She is currently on multiple collaborative projects, including a book proposal, meant to introduce preservice teachers and school leaders to common equity issues in restorative practice implementation.
Current Work
1) Studying the experiences of people of color who are responsible for implementing restorative practices in public schools across the US. How do they perceive their schools' approach to equity and what is their experience as leaders of color doing this work?2) Studying how scholars, educators, and education policymakers talk about racism in education--who do they blame for it and who do they hold accountable?3) Studying the role of emotion in how reseachers analyze qualitative data. For example, during an interview, how do we feel, and what does this tell us about how the participant might be feeling? In turn, how does this inform our understanding of the phenomenon under study?
Research Area Keyword(s)
critical reflexivity, restorative justice, School climate, school discipline reform, school leadership