The Impact of Restorative Practices on Violence, Well-being and Learning: Evidence from Schools in Bogota

In collaboration with the Secretary of Education of Bogotá, this project evaluates the impact of restorative practices in schools on students’ learning, socioemotional development, and educational outcomes. We implement a randomized controlled trial targeting secondary school classrooms experiencing severe peer-to-peer conflict in public schools serving low- income and conflict-displaced populations. The intervention consists of a structured restorative practices workshop delivered by trained government facilitators during regular class hours. After a conflictive situation emerges, the workshop guides students through reflection on violence, perspective-taking, accountability, and reparation, with the aim of improving classroom climate and strengthening socioemotional skills such as self-awareness and empathy. This proposal builds on a completed first experimental phase (48T-48C) and an ongoing phase (52T, 52C), which demonstrated strong partnership and implementation capacity, as well as encouraging results. Short-term evidence shows improvements in attendance, grade promotion, student retention and cognitive performance suggesting potential pathways toward longer-term learning gains (see appendix). At the same time, results reveal important welfare trade-offs, as some students, especially victims, may be experiencing short-run psychological discomfort following the restorative process. The longer-term follow-up is essential to assess whether impacts on learning, socioemotional development, and well-being persist, fade, or compound over time.