The social discipline window is a concept with broad application in many settings. It describes four basic approaches to maintaining social norms and behavioral boundaries. The four are represented as different combinations of high or low control and high or low support. The restorative domain combines both high control and high support and is characterized by doing things with people (collaboratively), rather than to them (coercively) or for them (without their involvement).
The social discipline window also defines restorative practices as a leadership model for parents in families, teachers in classrooms, administrators and managers in organizations, police and social workers in communities and judges and officials in government. The fundamental unifying hypothesis of restorative practices is that “human beings are happier, more cooperative and productive, and more likely to make positive changes in their behavior when those in positions of authority do things with them, rather than to them or for them.” This hypothesis maintains that the punitive and authoritarian to mode and the permissive and paternalistic for mode are not as effective as the restorative, participatory, engaging with mode.
The social discipline window reflects the seminal thinking of renowned Australian criminologist John Braithwaite, who has asserted that reliance on punishment as a social regulator is problematic because it shames and stigmatizes wrongdoers, pushes them into a negative societal subculture and fails to change their behavior. The restorative approach, on the other hand, reintegrates wrongdoers back into their community and reduces the likelihood that they will reoffend.
Read more about this topic: Restorative Practices
Famous quotes containing the words social, discipline and/or window:
“I was like a social worker for lepers. My clients had a chunk of their body they wanted to give away; for a price I was there to receive it. Crimes, sins, nightmares, hunks of hair: it was surprising how many of them has something to dispose of. The more I charged, the easier it was for them to breathe freely once more.”
—Tama Janowitz (b. 1957)
“Understanding child development takes the emphasis away from the child’s character—looking at the child as good or bad. The emphasis is put on behavior as communication. Discipline is thus seen as problem-solving. The child is helped to learn a more acceptable manner of communication.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)
“Our memory is like a shop in the window of which is exposed now one, now another photograph of the same person. And as a rule the most recent exhibit remains for some time the only one to be seen.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)