The basis for the severe discipline imposed on school children in colonial America, especially in the Puritan colonies, was the belief in original sin. The child was regarded as being born in sin and thus depraved and prone to sin. The purpose of education was to enable children to read the Bible and thus change the behavior which otherwise would…

The general economic and psychological evolution in America from a producer society to a consumer society has resulted in a conflict of purposes for American educators regarding school discipline. Consequently, contemporary American educators, unlike their forerunners, have ignored the long term social goals of classroom discipline. They have,…

While discouraging using writing as punishment, this pamphlet shows how writing can be a tool to support learning. The pamphlet discusses the following ten ways that writing can be used in any school subject to enhance learning and to develop students' thinking processes: (1) to identify personal goals, (2) to comprehend reading material, (3) to…

Reports a study of 540 first-, fourth-, and eighth-grade students who participated in a discrimination task under three reinforcement conditions: reward, punishment and a combination of both. Results indicate the superiority of learning under punishment conditions. Interactions involving the sex of subject and experimenter are also discussed.…

Describes a study based on the hypothesis that there were consistencies in child-rearing practices such that a regular progression would exist in children's performance of coercive responses. Results suggest that schedules of parental punishment covary with performance rates for children's coercive behaviors. (Author/EJT)

A brief history of corporal punishment in the public schools, a review of major federal court decisions regarding corporal punishment and due process for students, and an analysis of current trends in disciplinary policy are presented in this report. The conservative trend revealed in school discipline is identified in large part as a response to…

In an investigation authorized by a 1980 state law, the Legislative Education Study Committee of New Mexico, gathered testimony on student conduct and discipline issues in the local public schools. This report presents a summary of the committee's public hearings, in which parents, teachers, administrators, and community members testified.…

This paper compares data collected in a 1974 survey of discipline problems in Georgia secondary schools with data from a similar survey conducted by the same investigators in 1961. The 1961 survey examined 20 types of student misbehavior that had been identified in earlier studies; the 1974 survey included those 20 plus 13 additional items. The…

By utilizing reinforcing and punishing light cues the verbal output and leadership status of Target Ss in a four-person group was manipulated. There were three conditions: Control (no light cues used); Agree, where Non-Target Ss were reinforced for agreeing with the Target, and punished for all other verbalizations; and Disagree, where Non-Target…

The comparative effectiveness of an aversive stimulus, withholding of resources, withdrawal of love and reasoning, when used alone and combined with praise, was assessed in the standard laboratory punishment paradigm using 120 first and second graders as subjects. Resistance to deviation was used as the measure of punishment effectiveness. Sex of…

This training manual is designed to instruct work supervisors and skills trainers of the hard-to-employ disadvantaged in the effective utilization of behavioral reinforcement principles for overcoming difficult, frequently encountered training problems. One of its primary focuses is how to train for job-required behavioral skills such as…

Overcorrection is a mild punishment technique that provides for logical consequences of inappropriate behaviors. The method has two components--restitution, during which a disruptive environment is reinstated to a state vastly superior to the original one, and positive practice, during which more appropriate responses are taught to replace the…

Author proposed to state general propositions sufficiently developed by the outcome of court cases to better understand the weight against which particular situations involving the physical punishment of a student may be tested. The rationale upon which authority for punishment of pupils has evolved was also reviewed. (Author/RK)

In the best of conceivable worlds, the use of punishment would not be necessary. In the real world of school, however, punishment is sometimes needed. The author provides guidelines for maximizing the positive effects of punishment. (Author/RK)

Survey data from 116 schools indicate that (1) minority group students, particularly males, are corporally punished more often than their White peers; (2) boys, in general, receive more corporal punishment than girls; and (3) schools that use corporal punishment frequently also have high rates of suspension. (WI)