Use of Corporal Punishment in Relation to Institutional and Personal Variables of Teachers

Abstract

Corporal punishment is ingrained in schools worldwide as a normal disciplinary measure despite the legal ban on it in around 125 countries and India is one of these. Studies and media reports have shown a high prevalence rate (around 40% to 99.9%) across different parts of India. The unequal rate of punishment may be associated with school contexts. Therefore, it was intended to identify those institutional variables and teachers characteristics which determine the difference in the rate of use of corporal punishment. For this, data was collected from 202 teachers from 84 schools of Punjab. Results indicate that institutional variable such as school type, its location, organizational climate and personal variables of teachers, namely, their gender, marital status teaching experience, job satisfaction of teachers cause a difference in frequency of use of corporal punishment by teachers in schools. In this paper, the probable factors associated with these variables have also been explored.