The dinosaur effect: Assessing whether legislative abolition can lead to the complete extinction of corporal punishment

Abstract

In this research project, we probe the perceptions of secondary school teachers in the Tshwane North district of
Gauteng about the abolition of corporal punishment via legislation. This legislation sends a clear message that
corporal punishment is not an acceptable form of discipline. This could help to change social norms and
attitudes towards the use of physical force as a means of punishment. However, changing ingrained social norms
and attitudes towards corporal punishment can be a slow and contested process since it involves changing
deeply ingrained beliefs and behaviours. We link this slow social change metaphorically to the extinction of
dinosaurs. We used a structured questionnaire to obtain data from teachers from ten randomly selected
secondary schools via questions about convictions and beliefs about corporal punishment as a disciplinary
measure. A factor analytic procedure clustered the items into one factor which was named contradictory benefits
of abolishing corporal punishment. The most important finding was that the mental models that guide
perceptions about discipline are associated with time and that teachers raised and educated under a human rights
culture disagree that there are any disadvantages to abolishing corporal punishment. In addition to legislation,
other strategies such as education, awareness campaigns, and support for parents and caregivers can also play an
important role in reducing the use of corporal punishment.