The use of corporal punishment within the schools remains a controversial issue. Scholastic physical punishment is supposedly administered in a purposeful, premeditated manner according to a given set of contingencies revolving around school-rule infractions. According to some experts, the continuous general support for administering corporal…

Parental attitudes toward rewards for student behavior and academic achievement as well as toward corporal punishment were assessed. The sample consisted of 195 parents from northern Mississippi. University students administered the anonymous questionnaire. Among the results was that 75 percent queried would not approve teachers being allowed to…

Surveys were sent to large public school systems to determine the number that suspend and/or expel handicapped students. Analysis of the 106 returned questionnaires revealed that over 97% (103) suspend handicapped students, with 61 using both in-school and out-of-school suspensions, 36 using only out-of-school suspensions, and six using only…

This study attempted to assess the effects of a child's emotions on the severity of punishment suggested by adult subjects who hold authoritarian or nonauthoritarian attitudes about child rearing. (GO)

Reviews recent litigation involving corporal punishment of students and discusses other relevant cases involving the rights of students and parents vis-a-vis the rights and responsibilities of school officials. Offers suggestions for formulating districtwide policy governing the use of corporal punishment. (JG)

Interest continues to mount on the controversial topic of corporal punishment, but few concrete guidelines exist in most states. This article discusses the questions each educator must ask in regard to corporal punishment. (Editor)

To compare disciplinary techniques within families spanning three generations, 24 maternal grandmothers and 24 mothers independently selected rewarding and punishing consequences for their children's correct and incorrect responses on an age-appropriate learning task. The children's behaviors were experimentally controlled so that performances…

A study was conducted to investigate the influence of systematic trends in the successfulness of children's performance upon subsequent parental disciplinary actions. A total of 30 mothers 24 to 45 years of age and their sons, ages 4 to 7.5 years, participated. Mothers were provided with predetermined sequences of trial-by-trial information about…

Holland's original environmental formulations proposed that an environment's influence was transmitted through its inhabitants: environments could be classified by the predominant personality type of their inhabitants. But the approach to environmental assessment that relies on a census of inhabitants is only one approach, job analysis is another.…

Research shows that people comply more frequently to threats when the credibility of the source is high rather than low and that compliance is directly related to punishment magnitude. To examine the impact of an advisor on a target of threats, male college students (N=74) participated in an experiment that included high or low threatner…

Three basic approaches to discipline and child care are the obedience-oriented/punitive, the indulgent/permissive, and the person-enabling/justice approaches. The obedience-oriented/punitive approach, primarily concerned with obedience, sometimes uses praise and rewards manipulatively. When they fail, coercive punishment is used. The…

The Conservatism Scale, a recently developed reliable and valid measure of social attitudes, was completed by Dutch, English, and New Zealand samples. In each analysis the first two components which emerged loaded on religious and racialist-punitive items respectively. (Author)

Study supported by grants from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation (42), the National Institute of Health Service (HD-01456-02), the Defense Research Board of Canada (9401-24), and the National Research Council of Canada (APA-94).

To test the effectiveness of the Positive Approach to Discipline (PAD) System of classroom management, this study examined changes in the incidence of administrative disciplinary referrals, corporal punishment, and school suspensions in an urban Southwest public middle school. The 13-step PAD procedure--incorporating counseling, problem-solving,…

A continuing dichotomy in public opinion concerning the use of corporal punishment in Canadian schools provided the impetus for this paper, which includes a review of the relevant literature. Morality issues surrounding corporal punishment are discussed and public opinion data are exerpted from the Provincial Review of School Disciplinary Policy…