Corporal Punishment Literature Review

Although, there are many previous studies on corporal punishment, there is not many on corporal punishment in the classroom. For the purpose of this proposal the educators are viewed as loco parentis (instead of parents) in the classroom. The literature review is organised around the seven variables that have been empirically linked with corporal punishment on children: cognitive, behavioural, planned behaviour, social cognition, social learning, stress and theories.

Cognitive Theories
Cognitive theory proposes that thoughts (including beliefs and attitudes) are the primary determinants of emotions and behaviour (Myers, 1999; Lanz, 1996). Corporal Punishment from the perspective of learning theory indicates that punishment is unlikely to be

Several theories such as attribution theory, schema theory, self-presentation theory, self-regulation theory, and self-monitoring theory explore intra-psychic cognitive processes that occur before a person responds to the environment with behaviour (Fiske & Taylor). The field of social cognition proposes that an attitude is more likely to predict behaviour when the attitude is formed from direct experience, when the person has vested interest in the attitude, when the affective and cognitive components of an attitude are in agreement, and when the person is induces to think about the reasons underlying their attitudes (Fiske & Taylor). The field of social cognition also acknowledges that external factors can influence consistency between attitudes and behaviour (Weinzettle, 2003). Fiske and Taylor propose that social norms and personal relationships may have an effect on a person to act inconsistently with their

Trait or Temperament Theories
This is the presence of biological or psychological predispositions present in traits or temperament styles (Weinzettle, 2003). Bandura (1969) reports that, “These approaches assume that people possess generalized and stable response dispositions that determine their behaviour in a variety of situations” (p.14)
Aggressive behaviours are readily copied by young children and modeling of aggression occurs (Wilderdom, 2003).
The significance that this research would add to previous research work is that the effects of corporal punishment in schools will be investigated to fill as much as possible the gap between what the corporal punishment policy states and what is being practiced actually in real context. The research is meant to raise awareness of the issue of teachers’ motivation to inflict physical punishment on students. It is clear that previous research work rarely handled the topic from social and psychological aspects, of educators and the long-term effect on students’