PEDIATRICS Vol. 98 No. 4 October 1996, pp. 818-821
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Using Research to Change Public Policy: Reflections on 20 Years of Effort to Eliminate Corporal Punishment in Schools

Irwin A. Hyman EdD1

1 National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment and Alternatives, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

In the past 20 years, over half of the states have abolished corporal punishment in schools. Without the use of ethically questionable, experimental studies in which students were randomly assigned to paddlings, advocacy researchers were able to integrate the literature and experimental research on reward, punishment, and motivation, and conduct enough studies to provide sufficient data for policy changes. Further, every popular school discipline training program promotes well-proven positive and preventive techniques and punishments that do not inflict physical pain24. Research on alternatives, naturalistic evidence from schools that eliminated corporal punishment, and survey research prove that schools do not need to use corporal punishment.2

The movement to eliminate parental spanking is at a stage similar to the beginning of the school corporal punishment debate in 1976. Even though some studies may show that moderate parental spanking may do no short-term harm, there is little scientific evidence that it is necessary.30 There are no data to indicate that schools which eliminated corporal punishment became any worse.18

The same demographic factors and political polarizations that have kept about half of American school children from the protections against paddling afforded students in almost all other Western democracies also impede the movement to eliminate parental spanking. Since we know that corporal punishment too often leads to excesses, and since we have a multitude of effective positive approaches, what is the worst thing that would happen if all Americans stopped hitting children in any setting?

The same children who are hit for misbehavior would continue that misbehavior and other ineffective punishments would be used.




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