Dr. James Huguley grew up in a mostly Black and Latinx, economically disadvantaged community, and when he got to college he realized “just how few of us had made it to that point.” As he embarked on his studies in classroom teaching, his goal was to try to support students “coming out of that oppressive space and help them be successful academically, economically, and really just be able to self-actualize however they might want to, and not have those barriers stop them.” Huguley has carried these early goals with him as he has expanded his research into successful efforts in both restorative practices and parenting support.
When Huguley was attending the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, he was planning to train to be a school administrator or principal, but he “started to really fall in love with the research, and what we can learn and what we could accomplish by understanding effective, racial justice-oriented programs for youth of color.” When he joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, he worked closely with late Dean Larry Davis and Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity and Development Dr. John Wallace. Huguley recalls, “they were so connected to the work on the ground, they were so in touch with the communities that it was a natural fit, and I found ways to extend my expertise in practice and research to local communities that are like the one I grew up in.”
Today, Huguley’s work in the community has continued with his successful Just Discipline Project (JDP). Funded by the US. Department of Education, The Heinz Endowments, the Richard King Mellon Foundation among others, this innovative project seeks to create a national model of restorative practice programs based in schools. JDP looks at the impact of restorative practices on student disciplinary and academic outcomes; how treatment effects vary by student- and school-level characteristics; the impact of restorative practices on students’ engagement and perceptions of school climate; and the barriers to and supports for successful JDP implementation across schools. Results from their efforts have shown lower discipline rates, higher achievement, and better school climate outcomes from teachers and students.
“Our work at Just Discipline really focuses on transformation and restoration in the school institutional space, and how we can rethink our educational approaches in ways that are responsive to historic injustice and that utilize practices that are more aligned with where our kids are coming from,” said Huguley. To date Just Discipline has had promising results in reducing school suspensions and improved academic outcomes. Results of two clinical trials are in process, but early returns show treatment schools outpacing controls schools across the board in discipline, school climate, and academic domains.
Huguley’s work has received national attention, including from the White House. In 2022, he was part of a panel hosted by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans titled “Supporting Black Students Across the Education Sciences.”
Another recent project includes Parenting While Black (PWB), a groundbreaking program that collaborates with community agencies to support black primary caregivers in addressing issues of racial discrimination. PWB offers eight 1.5-hour sessions that include conversations on best practices, engaging activities, and support network-building. The process builds on both research and indigenous, intergenerational knowledge develop toolkits that promote personal and community resilience for Black caregivers and their children. Doctoral candidate Cecily Davis is co-principal investigator and lead facilitator on PWB, and doctoral student Sommer Blair has developed a parallel program for White families to promote antiracist parenting.
DREAMs (Developing Relational, Emotional, and Adaptive Minds) is another initiative from Huguley’s team. DREAMs is a trauma-informed, group intervention for 5th - 8th grade students. Doctoral candidate Bianca DeBellis, a trained school social worker as well as a trained schoolteacher, has codeveloped and take the lead on this project. Huguley explained: “It’s a responsive intervention that helps kids that have faced significant life adversity have positive outcomes in school knowing that they’ve been harmed by this world, and they don’t have all the systems and resources they need to be successful. We try to meet them where they are and help support them in these acute needs--particularly in spaces where schools lack adequate mental health supports and other social supports for students.”