Talk:School corporal punishment

List of countries

I don't really see why the list of countries is divided into continents. Would it be better as just a single alphabetical list? Alarics (talk) 12:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Since nobody has responded to the above, I am going to reorganise it into a single alphabetical list. Alarics (talk) 14:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

What about the African and Middle Eastern countries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.224.139.46 (talk) 09:49, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, they need adding. Would you like to do it? Alarics (talk) 10:44, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Some schools (southern USA)?

I understood many times, the paddling continue in these southern states in USA. It can't be wrote as "It is still used to a significant (though declining) degree in some public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.". If it's declining, the reason is the banning of corporal punishment in other states of the country (like California and New York in the 1980's). Two years ago, i read about a school headmaster in Texas who reinstated the paddle after some time it was banned from that institution (only a school). I also read few districts of these states banned that discipline method (only few). If you can correct me, show the web sources. Francodamned (talk) 01:17, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No, the figures for those southern states continue to go down every year, long after the effects of 1980s bans in other states:

"In percentage terms the heaviest-paddling states in 2006-07 were still Mississippi (7.5 per cent of students paddled during the year) followed by Arkansas (4.7%), though both these states' figures are gradually trending downwards year on year. Alabama comes third with 4.5% -- also in slow decline, despite that state's 1995 explicit legislative encouragement to teachers to use the paddle."

(http://www.corpun.com/counuss.htm) and see the New York times map on that page, showing Texas down to 1.4%, where it has declined sharply because a lot of the big urban school districts - Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin - have banned it, leaving most only rural areas still using it. Alarics (talk) 11:30, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, compare the 2002 percentages in that New York Times map with the figures for 2006 at http://www.stophitting.com/index.php?page=statesbanning . Mississippi down from 9.1% to 7.5%. Arkansas down from 7.6% to 4.7%. Louisiana from 2.3% to 1.7%. Tennessee from 4.4% to 1.5%. And so on. These are all significant declines over a 4-year period. Alarics (talk) 11:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Communist propaganda?

I requested a citation for the statement

Official communist propaganda always claimed that corporal punishment had been abolished in all communist regimes.

for which Alarics (talk · contribs) provided a reference in this edit. As I see it, the two sources cited say that school corporal punishment were/are banned in Soviet Union and North Korea. From what I can see these sources say little about what communist propaganda has to say on the issue. The statement "Official communist propaganda always claimed that ..." seemingly isn't supported by any source, but appears to be a novel synthesis.—Gabbe (talk) 12:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

When USSR existed, this is what I always heard. СЛУЖБА (talk) 22:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

OK I have rewritten it. In future if you are not happy with my work it would make more sense to come to my own talk page with your complaints rather than discussing me in the third person with the rest of the world on an article talk page where I might or might not come across it. By the way, nothing stops you finding better references yourself if you are not satisfied. Alarics (talk) 15:54, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

As per WP:TPG, article talk pages are for discussing article-related topics, user talk pages are for discussing user behaviour. I thought that this had more to do with the article itself rather than with you as a user, which is why I posted it here. I thought that other editors of this article should be able to join in the discussion of the passage here rather than on your user talk page. Using the second person on this page would seem pretty strange, hence I used the third person. In doing so I did not intend to disrespect you the slightest.

As for finding better sources myself, what stopped me is that I could find no sources at all supporting that statement, and to the best of my knowledge, there are none. Often I just delete unsourced information that I find unlikely. As this is a hotly debated issue, and you previously thought removing uncited text was not justified I gave it the benefit of the doubt and opted to raise the issue here first instead.—Gabbe (talk) 13:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

You may "find it unlikely", but it happens to be true. Alarics (talk) 14:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Regardless, the inclusion criteria for Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. And if it were true that, for example, official communist propaganda always claimed something or other then it should be absolutely trivial to find a citation supporting it. Gabbe (talk) 18:47, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. I found the two examples I have now cited from 1945 and 1960, but I wouldn't say that finding them was "absolutely trivial". It took some time, and a library card. A lot of stuff from before the 1990s simply is not to be found on the internet, and especially not on the freely accessible internet. But anyway my point was that what you might "find unlikely" is not a very reliable guide to action. You said "Often I just delete unsourced information that I find unlikely". I would prefer that you give people time to find a source, rather than unilaterally deleting something immediately, unless of course it falls into the category of "obviously nonsense", which this clearly didn't. Alarics (talk) 19:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

You're saying I've been deleting stuff too hastily and unilaterally on the articles connected to corporal punishment? Gabbe (talk) 19:56, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

No, but you seem to be threatening to do so, even when the things you describe as "unlikely" or "contentious" are actually true, and well known to some of us who are familiar with this subject. I have now found 3 references on the communism point and there are undoubtedly many more, but finding them is by no means "absolutely trivial" as you claim. Alarics (talk) 07:57, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

The communism paragraph now contains well cited assertions, which is great. Uncited statements have been removed, which is precisely what I was asking for. I'm not at all complaining on the communism passage as it currently stands. Good work! Gabbe (talk) 11:31, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

A minor point RE the CP article (Russia): "The punishment is usually administered . . . with . . . a wooden yardstick." I find it hard to believe that they would use a yardstick, as those would have to me imported specifically for that purpose. They don't use English measures in Russia. By now, I'm not sure they still use them in England. Hogwaump (talk) 18:34, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

No original research/Noticeboard query

I would like to draw the attention of the editors of this page to the query posted in the No original research/Noticeboard.--LexCorp (talk) 11:53, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The SAM paper

I strongly urge a reconsideration of these two edits. Our task as Wikipedians is to present research done by others, not discredit its conclusions or methodology ourselves. That would be a novel synthesis and a violation of the original research policy and as such, strictly prohibited. Gabbe (talk) 13:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I had to either add something to that effect or else delete reference to the paper altogether. As it stood, it was so utterly misleading as to be completely unacceptable. Alarics (talk) 16:36, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree we should not discredit the conclusions or methodology ourselves. I am not doing that, I am pointing out that the paper's opening definition is just completely wrong. It would be irresponsible not to point that out. Alarics (talk) 16:40, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

But by pointing that out you are precisely,in good faith mind you, discrediting the article as you are implying the author is wrong in defining the concept as he does. Problem here is that the paper seems legit WP:RS while my view or yours are irrelevant and not authority in the matter. Read my answer to you in the OR/Noticeboard to understand how to proceed from here given your concerns.--LexCorp (talk) 17:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think the paper is legit WP:RS, on this particular subject anyway. I'll just delete the whole paragraph and put something better there instead. Alarics (talk) 17:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Maybe the original editor will challenge you on the WP:RS issue as well and seek help at the appropriate noticeboard at WP:RSN.--LexCorp (talk) 17:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Per LexCorp's suggestion, I've added a query at WP:RSN#SAM position paper. Gabbe (talk) 22:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't you think the American Academy of Pediatrics citation that I've substituted is better anyway, quite aside from the question of the S.A.M.'s bizarre definition? Alarics (talk) 23:13, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm interested in hearing whether others think it's a reliable source or not. Gabbe (talk) 06:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a reliable source on what the S.A.M. "Ad Hoc Committee on Corporal Punishment" thinks after reading various literature, but plainly not a reliable source as to the actual facts about corporal punishment in U.S. schools. See the discussion at WP:RSN#SAM position paper. Anyway, I don't see why you are still pursuing this when we have the American Academy of Pediatrics citation, and we can add other similar things there if you like. Alarics (talk) 07:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Why I'm still pursuing this? It's not like my interest in whether it's a reliable source or not stopped the moment you removed it from the article. If I went around adding unreliable source to articles, that would be rather bad, so I'd like to know. And since you ask, I was thinking about adding a short bit about the notable medical, pediatric and psychological societies and what their respective official stances are. Gabbe (talk) 07:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, they will all be against it, of course. Those kinds of people always are. Naturally I have no objection to a list of organisations that are against school c.p. and of course that would include S.A.M. but preferably not citing that particular document with its (to put it mildly) extremely misleading definition. Alarics (talk) 08:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason to discredit the SAM paper based on the reasons given above. Firstly, their definition of corporal punishment is based on other peer-reviewed research, and the Journal of Adolescent Health is itself a peer-reviewed publication. Anyone who believes the SAM's view to be incorrect should justify it with published sources. Secondly, the AAP lends support credibility to the SAM's characterization of CP in their own paper "The Role of the Pediatrician in Abolishing Corporal Punishment in Schools" (Pediatrics 88(1):162-7), drawing on different sources than the SAM to identify instances of CP involving "shaking, pinching, ear pulling, jabbing, sticking with pins, shoving against walls or the floor, [and] choking", among other types of physical torture including "denying bathroom privileges". Thirdly, the SAM's characterization of CP is irrelevant to the conclusions put forward in the rest of the paper, which are based on a number of studies of CP as actually practised in schools. One doesn't have to accept that "punching" and "kicking" are forms of CP to identify problems with milder forms of punishment that also exist.—Coconutporkpie (talk) 07:51, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Having read the discussions at the RS noticeboard on this topic, it seems that the main counter-argument to the SAM's definition is that various teacher handbooks outline the "proper" use of CP as something very different. The problem with that argument is that just because something is in a rulebook doesn't mean that people follow the rules. As for teachers being charged with assault, U.S. state laws already give immunity to school officials who use the paddle and end up causing injury injure students by paddling them. It's not too hard to imagine teachers getting away with punching and kicking, given that authorities are generally reluctant to prosecute teachers accused of assault excessive CP use, and that it's ultimately up to the courts to decide whether a teacher was in the wrong. All of which is still irrelevant unless other reliable sources (not self-published blogs) can be found to refute the SAM paper.—Coconutporkpie (talk) 08:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Utah.

What is the source for Utah?

СЛУЖБА (talk) 22:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The source is as stated in the footnote (Center for Effective Discipline). Alarics (talk) 10:42, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. twitter.com/YOMALSIDOROFF (talk) 03:51, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Washington State

Can someone with some wiki skills look in to this and update it if needed? http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=28A.150.300 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.105.201.95 (talk) 08:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The Czech Republic school punishment

The school corporal punishment was banned in 1870 by law called "Řád školní a vyučovací pro obyčejné školy obecné" (Austro-Hungarian monarchy).

Current law enables only these specific punishments:

• admonition of class-teacher
• reprimand of class-teacher
• reprimand of school principal

Current law connected to school punishment:

• 561/2004 Sb., "školský zákon", § 31 and
• 48/2005 Sb., "o základním vzdělávání a některých náležitostech plnění povinné školní docházky", § 17 and
• 13/2005 Sb., "o středním vzdělávání a vzdělávání v konzervatoři", § 10 — Preceding unsigned comment added by PavelTa (talk • contribs) 21:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see this source, which is the basis for the colours in the image. Gabbe (talk) 07:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Image

The image is out of date, New Mexico has now banned school corporal punishment. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 01:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

France and Czech Rep.

Should France and the Czech Republic be recolored to a different color (purple, perhaps) with the caption, "Not explicitly permitted in schools, but not explicitly prohibited either; allowed in the home"? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 01:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

In fact it has now been explicitly banned in the Czech Republic (I have just amended the article accordingly), so it should now be recoloured blue. -- Alarics (talk) 10:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, and my question still applies to France. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 00:47, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Please be vigilant

I removed a claim that this news story shows "More than 20 years after abolition in state schools, there persists a marked lack of consensus on corporal punishment". Please be vigilant against further POV-pushing; 80% seems a pretty strong consensus and we do not normally report on opinion polls in this way. --John (talk) 10:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The statement was not, and did not claim to be, based on that news story alone, which is about teachers' opinions only. The "lack of consensus" is in society as a whole. There have been plenty of opinion surveys to this effect: this Times-Populus survey of young adults in 2004 and this 2005 survey of parents and numerous others, as well as this 2009 survey already cited in the article. I am not aware of any rule against citing opinion polls in WP. It seems to me that the state of public opinion is a relevant fact where it can be cited to a reliable source. Nobody is POV-pushing: Wikipedia of course takes no position on the substantive issue. We are supposed to neutrally report all significant views. -- Alarics (talk) 11:25, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Opinion polls are inherently non-notable. If it is very important to you to include this, you should seek other opinions towards achieving a consensus. --John (talk) 11:47, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I am a bit puzzled by the disagreement. If multiple reliable sources in the UK, express the view that the British public often express a greater support for the idea of school corporal punishment, than sense or realism would support, then certainly those views can be included in the article. It is not an argument for the restoration of school corporal punishment; it is merely a statement that the British public, or a large segment of it, has rather inexplicable views on this topic. It is purely descriptive, rather than prescriptive. The reliable sources describe it so; and Wikipedia reports on what the reliable sources say. In any case, this article - like the rest of Wikipedia - should not be prescriptive about anything.

John is right that Wikipedia does not report on opinion polls in this way. However, Wikipedia does report on what independent reliable sources say about opinion polls and their (supposed or imagined) significance. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:10, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Disagree. twitter.com/YOMALSIDOROFF (talk) 22:26, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Korea

Information on Korea is contradictory: Para 1 of "Geographical Scope" states that corporal punishment in schools has been outlawed in "Korea" (are we to assume "South Korea"?) but para 4 of the same section states, "In South Korea, male and female secondary students alike are commonly spanked in school." The section on South Korea in the Country by Country section first states that "Corporal punishment used to be lawful and widely used in South Korean schools" and uses the past tense in the following sentence, but the remainder of the paragraph is written in the present tense. The section concludes by stating that several provinces have established ordinances to prohibit corporal punishment in schools at all levels, suggesting that corporal punishment is still legal in some South Korean provinces. Someone please clarify. Washijuwin (talk) 18:46, 17 November 2013 (UTC)washijuwin

Corporal punishment vs. school detentions

Parents, too, often complain about the inconvenience occasioned by penalties such as detention or Saturday school.

This is a red herring, as arguments against detention do not logically imply support for corporal punishment. They are separate subjects, and the source cited does not mention parental complaints about detentions in its review of corporal punishments.

Coconutporkpie (talk) 20:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

References

China

The only source reference I can find on the Web for China's "theoretical" ban on school CP after the 1949 revolution is the page "Country files: School CP in China" at www.corpun.com, by "C. Farrell", who does not list a source. The Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children's report on China makes no mention of such a ban. Is there a more reliable source for this info, perhaps in a scholarly work? Coconutporkpie (talk) 22:21, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

The USA Today article that we already mention (9 May 2000) makes this claim, attributing it to the (admittedly not at all NPOV) Center for Effective Discipline. I cannot find any reference to this on the present-day C.E.D. website, which has changed a lot recently. The claim is also made in footnote 255 (p.36) of this 2009 paper which on the face of it looks more scholarly, but cites it to stophitting.com which now just redirects back to the aforementioned C.E.D. site. We could cite the claim more clearly to the USA Today piece that we already mention, if we trust the C.E.D to have found it somewhere reliable in the first place, or simply delete mention of the 1949 ban altogether, especially since it clearly existed on paper only, if at all, and was not enforced. -- Alarics (talk) 07:40, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I didn't catch the mention in the USA Today article before. On the one hand, the C.E.D. may be biased, but that doesn't imply that they would have necessarily distorted the facts (I'm ignorant as to USA Today's reputation for fact-checking). The Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children is another such advocacy group, which is commonly cited for information about the laws in different countries. On the other hand, if the PRC's ban were real, even as bluster or propaganda, I would think that other, independently-reviewed sources would have mentioned it. And maybe there are such sources yet to be found. I don't think that corpun.com, as a self-published website, qualifies for that sort of reporting or commentary (WP:SPS), notwithstanding Mr. Farrell's service in handily compiling articles from other sources. —Coconutporkpie (talk) 22:00, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Ceremonial nature

I have deleted references to school CP being done in a "methodical and premeditated ceremony", since no reliable sources appear to support this as a general charcterization. It certainly does not seem to always be the case in the US, where a report by Human Rights Watch and the ACLU contained allegations that beatings are often administered in a chaotic environment, where paddling is seen as a quick form of discipline and often not documented. The idea that school CP is primarily methodical and controllled seems to be original research/interpretation (WP:ORIGINAL). Coconutporkpie (talk) 08:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

It was probably I who wrote that phrase. I was trying to define school CP as "formal" and "official" CP, which in the US especially is a measured and highly regulated procedure nowadays, to distinguish it from random hitting or "beating", which is usually a bad-tempered, random, spur-of-the-moment thing and arguably not "proper CP". The Human Rights Watch and ACLU references to "beating" "in a chaotic environment" are highly POV because those organisations are not neutral observers. It suits such anti-CP campaigners to widen the definition of CP to include random violence and pretend that it is representative of CP in schools today, which is nonsense. -- Alarics (talk) 10:00, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

If school CP in the US is indeed practised in a measured and highly regulated way, then I certainly think the article would benefit from some reliable source citations (not self-published sources, per WP:SPS) to show that that is so. —Coconutporkpie (talk) 10:15, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

More generally, in the last few hours you have made the article a good deal less useful and informative by unilaterally slashing whole swathes of information and references carefully assembled over a long period of time. I wish you had raised your issues one by one on this talk page first before destroying so much work. -- Alarics (talk) 10:19, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Attempting to restrict the definition of any topic on Wikipedia to what a given editor believes to be the legitimate one is original research (WP:ORIGINAL), and verges on a claim of ownership of the material (WP:OWN). If one wished to examine school corporal punishment only as a formalised, ritual procedure, then the proper thing to do would be to create a page title explicitly referring to that aspect of the topic, provided that it meets the general notability guideline of Wikipedia (WP:NOTABILITY). —Coconutporkpie (talk) 22:08, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Verifiability, "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed", and self-published sources (those lacking a sponsoring body and without editorial oversight) are "largely not acceptable as sources". I have taken out a good deal of what struck me as misleading information based on questionable sources, and other material tending to give undue weight to biased sources minority views (WP:UNDUE), precisely because the article was less useful with it in. Per Wikipedia:Editing policy, "a lack of information is better than misleading or false information". —Coconutporkpie (talk) 05:17, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

As an aside, a source's own POV does not rule it out as reliable, provided there is meaningful editorial oversight and fact-checking (WP:BIASED). I am not saying that the ACLU report is necessarily reliable for statements of fact, but I think the allegations do call into question the claim that school CP anywhere is first and foremost done calmly and methodically. If nothing else, using those words to describe school CP puts undue emphasis on the supposed dignity of the procedure, in violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. —Coconutporkpie (talk) 05:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Scottish Case

I seem to remember at one point either on this article or on another related one there was a case (possibly a court case) about corporal punishment in a UK boarding school (maybe scottish?) where a (13?) year old was left bruised and the headmaster defended it saying that it ought to hurt. It was from a newspaper or something retrieved maybe from the 1980s. Does anybody know where this can be found or where it went? I need to cite it for a project and I'm going absolutely mental trying to find it. I believe it was near the end of corporal punishment in the area.68.149.162.126 (talk) 05:04, 18 December 2015 (UTC) It might have been this, but I thought that it was from an actual newspaper article http://www.corpun.com/uksc8707.htm 68.149.162.126 (talk) 05:48, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Canada Case

In the article it states that Nunavut prohibited corporal punishment in 1995, but Nunavut only became a territory in 1999. I am wondering if there is a mistake? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Selvimus (talk • contribs) 13:40, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

United Kingdom

Some mention of STOPP recommended."Tom Scott, then a teacher in Tower Hamlets, east London, helped set up STOPP, the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment." in 1968? Also Mary Marsh http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/07/24/how-child-beating-teachers-were-stopped-25-years-ago/ Szczels (talk) 09:13, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

See Campaigns against corporal punishment#United Kingdom -- Alarics (talk) 12:23, 22 January 2019 (UTC) Thankyou Alarics pointing out that STOPP is included in Campaigns... page. Szczels (talk) 12:33, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

List of countries where it's legal

This study[1] lists all the countries where school corporal punishment is legal as of 2016. This may be useful in constructing a worldwide map on the legal status of the phenomenon. Thenightaway (talk) 15:00, 12 November 2022 (UTC)