Pediatricians Call To End Corporal Punishment In Schools

The school setting, which parents, caregivers and students hope to be one of safety, offering academics, socialization, and food and nutrition for those in need, continues to evoke fear in many. With school shootings becoming more frequent each year, the added concern for children being struck by a school’s faculty and other adult personnel is a real one. The U.S. Supreme Court has stated that corporal punishment is constitutional, based on the Ingraham v Wright in 1978. There are currently 18 states where corporal punishment is legal in public schools. And all states except for Iowa and New Jersey deem that corporal punishment is legal in private schools.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued an updated policy statement regarding the importance of removing the legality of corporal punishment, which may include spanking, paddling, or other forms of physical punishment, in all schools throughout the U.S. The statement describes the methods as unethical and ineffective. According to the policy statement, authored by Dr. Jaime Peterson, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Oregon Health & Science University, along with Drs. Mindy A. Allison and Nathaniel Beers, “The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that corporal punishment in all school settings be abolished in all states by law and replaced by alternative forms of student behavior management.”

The new policy statement, based solely on school-based corporal punishment, not that in the home, was published in the August 2023 issue of the journal Pediatrics. The authors utilized data from the U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights Data Collection, which included information on preschool children as well as children in kindergarten through 12th grade. While 96% of public schools reported no use of corporal punishment, the schools that do utilize physical forms of student discipline use it anywhere from 0.6% to 9% of the time. This may be equivalent to approximately 70,000 students being physically struck by school personnel at least once during the school year. Schools in southern states had the highest rate of use of corporal punishment.

National data also described gender, racial and ability disparities regarding which demographic groups of students were more likely to be subject to physical punishments. Students who identified as Black and male were more likely to be struck. Black boys were nearly twice as likely to be struck as White boys (14% versus 7.5%), and Black girls were more than three times as likely to be struck as White girls (5.2% versus 1.7%). Individuals who identified as having a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, reported a higher incidence (16%) of physical punishment while at school compared to those with no identified disability.

The majority of studies in the past have focused on the harm and lack of benefit of corporal punishment in the home. In a 2018 AAP policy statement regarding corporal punishment in the home, statement authors advised parents and caregivers against “spanking, hitting, slapping, threatening, insulting, humiliating, or shaming.” Many studies have confirmed that hitting and spanking results in worse, not better, behavior in children, and leads to fear and social and familial withdrawal in children. It also leads to issues of aggression and violence in these children as they age to late adolescence and early adulthood. The current policy statement is the first that identifies risk factors and incidence of school-based corporal punishment on a national level.

Based on the recent data, the AAP has several recommendations:

1. “Corporal punishment in all school settings [should] be abolished in all states by law and that alternative age-appropriate and nonviolent forms of student behavior management [should] be used.”
2. “End[ing] corporal punishment, which is disproportionately used among Black, male students, is one way to address inequities based on race and reduce harm to Black students.”
3. “End[ing] corporal punishment, which is disproportionately used among children with disabilities, is also a way to address inequities based on disability status and reduce harm to students with disabilities.”
4. “Alternative age-appropriate and nonviolent behavioral strategies should be encouraged in place of corporal punishment, such as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, restorative justice, conflict resolution, mentoring, and individual therapy.”