Corporal Punishment Discrimination in Schools

Guest: Liz Gershoff, PhD, Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas, Austin In some US states, teachers can discipline their students with a paddle across the backside – even if the paddling causes injuries that parents would be prosecuted for inflicting. You heard me right: corporal punishment is still in use in US schools, and teachers can be immune from prosecution for injuries caused by it. Now there’s evidence that corporal punishment is more often used on boys, Black students and those with disabilities. The discrimination is detailed in a Social Policy Report from the Society for Research in Child Development.