Correlation between high rates of corporal punishment in public schools and social pathologies

http://www.nospank.net/correlationstudy.htm

By John Guthrow, December 2002

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a correlation between the use of corporal punishment in public schools and larger societal outcomes.

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Since many states have banned corporal punishment in schools and many others have not and still allow it, it is possible to study in a fairly scientific way whether one approach to education works better than the other. In short, the opportunity exists for a controlled experiment, in which it is possible to study whether those states that still paddle children do better or worse, in the classroom and in other areas of society, than those states that do not.

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This study examines thirteen sociological categories and applies the analytical logic described above to determine whether there is in fact a correlation between states that use corporal punishment in schools and larger societal outcomes. Specifically, the study targets the "best ten" states and the "worst ten" states in each sociological category to determine whether there is an even or uneven distribution of paddling and non-paddling states.

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One can define "disproportionate" in fairly specific terms. There were, at the time the data in this study were collected, twenty-three states in the United States that allow corporal punishment in public schools. Twenty-three states represent 46% of the states in the United States. If there were no correlation between corporal punishment in public schools and larger societal outcomes, one would expect an even distribution of paddling and non-paddling states within each percentile of each category. In other words, within any random sample of ten states, one would expect 4.6 paddling states and 5.4 non-paddling states to appear.

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The thirteen categories studied are: the murder rate, the incarceration rate, the condition of children index, the average proficiency in math for 8th graders, the high school completion rate, the percentage of the population over 25 with a high school diploma, state and local education spending, spending per pupil, the percentage of the population in poverty, the percentage of children in poverty, the percentage of births to unwed mothers, state health rankings, and the death rate. The results appear on the following pages.

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Of the states with the ten highest murder rates in the United States, educators paddle children in eight of them.

Of the states with the ten lowest murder rates in the nation, educators paddle children in one of them.

Of the ten states with the highest percentage of the population in prison, educators paddle children in nine of them.

Of the ten states with the lowest percentage of the population in prison, educators do not paddle children in any of them.

Of the states in the bottom ten percent* in terms of average proficiency in math, educators paddle children in all of them.

Of the states in the top ten percent* in terms of average proficiency in math, educators paddle children in one of them.

Of the states with the ten worst high school completion rates, educators paddle children in seven of them.

Of the states with the ten best high school completion rates, educators paddle children in one of them.

Of the ten states in the United States with the highest percentage of births to unwed mothers, educators paddle children in nine of them.

Of the ten states in the United States with the lowest percentage of births to unwed mothers, educators paddle children in two of them.

Of the ten states with the highest age-adjusted death rates, educators paddle children in nine of them.

Of the ten states with the lowest age-adjusted death rates, educators paddle children in one of them.

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There is a clear statistical correlation between corporal punishment in public schools and larger societal outcomes. Specifically, there is a strong correlation between those states that use corporal punishment in public schools and negative societal outcomes, and there is an equally strong correlation between those states that have banned corporal punishment in public schools and positive societal outcomes.

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In layman's terms, this correlation means the following: non-paddling states like Minnesota have relatively better test scores, lower drop-out rates, lower poverty rates, and better health care. Paddling states like Louisiana have relatively lower test scores, higher drop-out rates, higher poverty rates, and lower-quality health care. Those findings cannot be more clear.

It is important to note that correlation does not equal causation. For example, the fact that paddling states have relatively higher death rates obviously does not mean that people are dying at a higher rate directly because of school paddlings. The question of why there is in fact a correlation between corporal punishment in schools and social pathologies is, for the most part, beyond the scope of this study.

Having said that, the following is a very brief hypothosis as to why there may be such a strong correlation between corporal punishment in schools and negative social pathologies. ..There is existing research, such as that of Dr. Murray Strauss of the University of New Hampshire, that has linked physical punishment of children to increased aggression and anti-social activity. This research suggests that children who are physically punished experience long-term feelings of anger, fear, humiliation, and withdrawal more than children who are not physically punished. If one accepts these results, it is not a great leap to suggest that children who are punished violently at school on a regular basis probably display aggression and anti-social behavior, and experience feelings of anger, fear, humiliation, and withdrawal, with far greater frequency and intensity than other children. Children in this stressful, negative social environment find it relatively more difficult to learn and succeed in school ---this would explain the paddling states' relatively lower test scores and higher dropout rates. And once educational achievement suffers, other aspects of society suffer proportionately. Economic development suffers, for example, and in turn, education and health care suffer. This in turn makes it even harder to grow the economy, and so on. In short, the society becomes locked in a cycle of dysfunction.

Of course, many factors account for any given society's relative level of success or dysfunction, and the suggestion is not that school paddling in and of itself causes economic stagnation and societal dysfunction. However, to the extent that education is the foundation of any society's success, and to the extent that school paddling has created a hostile, violent, negative educational environment for generations of children in states where it is still used, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that paddling is in fact at least one of the factors that contributes to the overall societal troubles that are clearly so prevalent in those states where the paddle is used.

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tags: child abuse, corporal punishment, spanking