Human rights and restorative justice in schools: between decrees and the practice of citizenship in the context of brazilian democracy

Abstract

The present article aims to understand, from the narrative of the teachers who graduated from the "Restorative Culture and its Practices" training, the place that human rights and justice had in their trajectories and how they negotiated the introduction of their principles into their practices. Assumption is that the relationship between human rights and the mediation of conflicts through restorative practices has an emancipatory potential that has not yet been adequately realized, which leads not only to reflection on problem of the realization of democracy and rights in Brazil, but also of the resistances and signs, albeit timid, of new democratic possibilities. With this in mind, we adopt the theoretical-methodological framework of oral history of life, considering that this proposal allows us to capture experiences that mean by their singularities and, at the same time, by inscribing them in a wider social context. Authors like Arendt, Benevides, Holanda, Freire, Duschatzky, helped us to problematize the human rights, restorative justice and democracy situation among us. Although we have identified in the teachers' expressions that the inclusion of restorative justice in schools was beneficial to introduce the dialogue with the students, we also perceive that their narratives are devoid of commitments that are more con sistent with their presuppositions. We believe, however, that the repositioning of restorative justice in an educational setting could make it possible not only to prevent violence within school units, but could lead to more powerful ways of living, open to dialogue, and willing to build democratic relationships.