Restorative Justice Education (RJE) was first implemented in Canadian schools in the 1990s, as a way to enhance relationships, nurture theskills and approaches needed for engaged citizens, and respond to harm and conflict in meaningful ways (Evans & Vaandering, 2022; Reimer& Parker-Shandal, 2023). RJE principles and practices continue to be implemented in educational contexts within Canada and around theworld. There is growing momentum as evidenced by, among other metrics, increased post-secondary program development, professionallearning opportunities, and school-wide or classroom stories of practice (Darling-Hammond, et al., 2020; Foomani & Reimer, 2025). Researchcontinues to reveal that though RJE shows promise for developing relational school culture and addressing serious harm when it occurs, RJEcan also be co-opted by school systems and people uninterested in relational ways of being (Gregory & Evans, 2020; Reimer, 2019). A keyfinding from studies of RJE in teacher education (Eizadirad & Parker-Shandal, 2025; Hollweck et al., 2019; Foomani & Reimer, 2025,Vaandering, 2014) is that the most impactful way to teach RJE is in courses grounded in restorative philosophy and through RJE processes, sothat teachers experience the relational and transformative potential of RJE.

One core RJE process is pedagogical circle time. Restorative circles involve the physical re-arrangement of spaces so that participants aresitting or standing in circle, where everyone is visible, without physical barriers and on an equal level, with no obvious hierarchies. Restorativecircles require an intentional re-ordering of the physical space into one where each person is invited to participate fully, spaces “designed topromote connection, understanding and dialogue in a group” (Boyes-Watson & Pranis, 2014, p. 23). Through circle process, students – whetherchild or adult, “engage with the content and skills of any curriculum area, with one another, and with their own emotions and perspectives”(Reimer & Parker-Shandal, 2023, p. 2).

This paper presents on Relational, Restorative Book Clubs (RRBC), a professional learning practice, grounded in restorative philosophy, that isrelational and collaborative by design. RRBCs were implemented by the author in 2022 in Australia and in 2026 in Canada. RRBCs bringtogether educators interested in restorative approaches in education (Evans & Vaandering, 2022) to learn from and with one another, whilemeeting physically in person in circle. This paper reports on the Canadian RRBC, held once a week for 4 weeks, where educators met todiscuss an RJE book, relating their own experiences and practices to the book content (Foomani & Reimer, 2024).

Context matters. This study took place in Sydney, Nova Scotia, which is located on Cape Breton Island. Sydney is home to 30,000 people withonly 100,000 on the whole island. The island is steeped in relationship – within and between the communities of the Mi’kmaw people, Acadians,Gaelic, English and those considered more as newcomers. Yet despite the strong relational fabric of the island, Professional Learning forteachers is mandated from the mainland with little regional input. Educators are provided with five Professional Learning days per year insessions organized by the provincial body. RRBCs attempt to counter these external and often generic sessions and instead build on therelational foundation of Cape Breton Island to offer a free, informal collaborative learning circle experience informed by restorative pedagogy.The research study sought to understand the impact of this experience on educator knowledge, competence and confidence.

The aims of the project were to understand the current level of educator knowledge about RJE and relational practices, and to support teachers in gaining knowledge, confidence and competence in collaborative ways. Research questions included: 1. How are educators already engaged in restorative and relational practice in their own classrooms? 2. How does this book club, as an informal community of practice, impact educators’ understanding, confidence and sense of competence in enacting restorative and relational practices? This is a qualitative case study, taking as the case the 15 Cape Breton Island educators who engage in the Relational Restorative Book Club in the late Winter of 2026. The presenter and one Research Assistant, both from Cape Breton University, are utilizing multiple data collection activities to construct the case study. Educators complete a survey prior to the first Book Club meeting to determine current knowledge and practice and a survey after the final Book Club meeting to gauge changes in self-assessed knowledge, confidence and competence. The 15 educators will engage in the Book Club sessions, all taking place in a local community arts centre one evening per week for four weeks.The educators will sit in physical circle and share their insights into the book and its connections to their own practice, through a restorative circle process, helping to co-construct our understandings of RJE in this place and time. The researcher and research assistant will record independent observation notes after each session, noting interpersonal dynamics, insights, challenges and questions. These recordings will then be compared and discussed. A few weeks after the final Book Club, we will convene a final learning circle discussion with the educators to explore the impact of the project.Learning circles are a restorative research methodology (Vedeler & Reimer, 2024), similar to other restorative circle processes, that position participants as experts of their own experience and provide space to listen and learn from one another’s experience. In learning circles, one person speaks at a time and the talking space is passed sequentially from person to person, ensuring that each person’s voice is heard and valued. The facilitator or ‘circle keeper’ introduces a round of questions and invites each person, in turn, to respond to the question from their own experience or to build on, and/or contradict, what others have shared before them (Reimer, 2019; Vedeler & Reimer, 2024).

Teachers in Nova Scotia, Canada, are expected to participate in professional learning throughout their careers to stay current in educational research, technology, policy, inclusion and many other aspects of their professional practice. However, professional learning sessions for Nova Scotia teachers are usually planned by administrators which leaves little opportunity for teachers to contribute their input. In a recent technical report shared with the Cape Breton Victoria Regional Center for Education (Tremblay, 2025) on practicing P-12 music teachers' experiences with professional learning, participants asked for more time to learn from one another: that the best sessions are “if there's no special presentation; if it's just all of us together”. This study builds on this relational impulse – to just be together and learn from one another – to intentionally design a learning and research environment that brings educators together in a physical circle, based on restorative philosophy. Expected outcomes are enhanced understanding of the current restorative knowledge, practice and confidence in Cape Breton Island schools and insight into the impact of relational practices for professional learning. The aim is also for the participating educators to form a community of practice where they can support one another’s RJE work in the relational ways that are so inherent to this island. Future research intends to follow these same educators through to their classrooms to observe their RJE practices with their students, and to convene subsequent learning circles to explore the ongoing impact of circle-based Book Clubs on professional practice.

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