Term Paper on "Corporal Punishment it Seems That Everyone Holds"

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[EXCERPT] . . . .

Corporal Punishment

It seems that everyone holds an opinion on what they call "corporal punishment," and everyone seems to know exactly what they mean by "corporal punishment. Technically, corporal punishment means "the infliction of punishment on the body" (Benatar, 1998), meaning that everything from one swat on the behind of a toddler to torture to death by electrocution or lethal injection is "corporal punishment. However, when parents or researchers talk about the corporal punishment of children, what they usually mean is spanking, a form of discipline used by many parents. Benatar (1998) defines it as "the infliction of physical pain without injury" (Benatar, 1998), but that definition is also broader than spanking.

Once corporal punishment is narrowed down to spanking, it should be easier for researchers to talk about the practice with some precision, but often that is not the case. Because the topic is so emotional, articles and studies often refer to actions most would call physical abuse, such as beatings, punching and kicking (Author not given, 1966). In addition, many studies do not distinguish between limited (one or two swats with an open hand) spanking of toddlers and corporal punishment of teenagers. To make it even more unclear, within schools, corporal punishment often means using a wooden paddle. If parents spanked their children with wooden paddles they might be accused of child abuse. The language regarding this topic is often unclear and confusing even when speakers know exactly what they themselves mean by the terms they use.

The publication Family Policy looked at the available research on corporal punishment, finding over 150 articles. However, 83% were opinion pieces, not research. They also noted that most of the research studies had significant flaws. Some combined the effects of abuse with the effects of spanking while others included all ages from small toddler to adolescents. In Family Policy's opinion, the best-done studies actually supported the use of corporal punishment (Author not given, 1966). This publication concluded that "The critical issue is how spanking (or, in fact, any punishment) is used more than whether it is used. Physical abuse by an angry, uncontrolled parent will leave lasting emotional wounds and cultivate bitterness and resentment within a child. The balanced, prudent use of disciplinary spanking, however, is an effective deterrent to aggressive behavior with some children."

An examination of some research and other writing on the topic of corporal punishment confirmed Family Policy's view that personal opinion influenced discussions as well as research, and showed that researchers did often fail to adequately narrow their parameters to get credible results. Strauss's report on the current research (Strauss, 2001) demonstrates the blending of age groups in research. Strauss reported that only about half as many parents "hit" teenagers as they did about thirty years ago. However, hitting and spanking are not the same thing. Since Strauss did not clarify the terms, it is hard to know whether he was talking about angry abuse or spanking. Then Strauss goes on to report that about 94% of parents of toddlers use spanking, the same percentage who did in 1975. With these two statements, Strauss went on to combine wide age ranges. In addition, using the term "hit" in a discussion of spanking is pejorative and shows that even in research, researchers can allow personal feelings or emotion to color their conclusions.

Other studies claimed that their research demonstrated that corporal punishment causes an increase in antisocial behavior among children spanked (Bauman, 1996). Strauss examined a number of articles and found a correlation between spanking and antisocial behavior. However, he then went on to call this an effect. The research did not demonstrate that the corporal punishment caused the antisocial behavior. It seems equally likely that children who show antisocial tendencies are more likely to be spanked than children who do not show those tendencies. The saying that "correlation is not causation" applies in such situations. Once this correlation was found, highly focused and detailed research might have identified the relationship between the two events, but it was not accurate to assume that because the two events correlated, one had to cause the other. It could have been… READ MORE

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