LITERATURE REVIEW ON CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

Literature Review on Corporal Punishment

Literature Review on Corporal Punishment

Introduction

Historically, corporal punishment (CP) has been defined as the infliction of pain, loss, or confinement of the human body—as distinguished from financial consequence—as a penalty for some offense. In the past, it was a common civil penalty used on citizens, slaves, sailors, and school children. Parental spanking, in contemporary times, is defined as the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury, for purposes of correction or control of the child's behavior (Straus, 1994).

In contemporary educational settings, CP is generally synonymous with paddling for breaking a school rule. However, because of case law, the definition has expanded to include any punishment that includes the infliction of pain that results in unreasonable discomfort (Hyman, 1997). CP includes excessive physical drills, shaking, making students stand for long periods in uncomfortable positions, excessive time in time-out rooms, tying students in time-out chairs, not allowing use of bathroom facilities for unreasonable periods of time, and forcing children to ingest obnoxious substances. In school settings, the legal definition of corporal punishment does not cover the use of force or restraint to protect one's self, another, and property; to obtain weapons; or to prevent students from harming themselves.

Definition of Corporal Punishment

Corporal punishment is a practice deeply ingrained in American education. Its roots reach into the pre-Revolutionary colonial era. Consistent with the then-pervasive view of schooling as a means of passing on pious values, and of discipline as the means of driving sin from children, parents and teachers alike believed their responsibility to correct children, including the use of the rod, was commanded by God.

The adoption and ratification of the Constitution, and the writings of some of its framers and their contemporaries in the late 1700s, served to recast the mission of education in the young republic. Even though the schools' religious underpinnings faded and a new, enlightened view of civic responsibility emerged, the harsh disciplinary regime that had characterized the schools prior to the Revolution persisted well into the 1800s. Nor did the growing influence of the Common School Movement in the mid-1800s, with its emphasis on moral suasion and a more nurturing view of child development, radically alter the use of physical punishment in many schools. Throughout even the latter half of the 19th century, state court challenges to corporal punishment in the public schools were of limited success, with teachers most often accorded appreciable, if not necessarily the same, discretion as parents in the use of physical punishment. Illustrative of these were cases decided in North Carolina and Vermont respectively, State v. Pendergrass (1837) and Lander v. Seaver (1859).

During the first quarter of the 20th century, many states moved to enact school codes as a means of bringing greater uniformity to their educational policies and practices. Many codified the common law right of teachers to use corporal punishment and established standards for its usage. Most authorized corporal punishment when “reasonable” or “necessary” ...