PEDIATRIC DISCOURSE ON CORPORAL PUNISHMENT - A HISTORICAL REVIEW

Corporal punishment is a commonly used, but controversial disciplinary technique. This article reviews the pediatric professional response t o corporal punishment over the past century. We focus predominantly on the discourse written to educate pediatricians, for the most part, te xtbooks. Using the sociologic construction of deviance proposed by Con rad and Schneider, we show how corporal punishment has moved from a co ndoned behavior to a socially deviant behavior. Based on our review of this literature, we delineate three distinct pediatric professional a ttitudes toward corporal punishment over this century: (a) corporal pu nishment as morally sanctioned behavior, (b) corporal punishment as at ool for controlling behavior, and (c) corporal punishment as abusive. We show how each of these stances developed and demonstrate how these stances inform paradigms that are still operative today. By reviewing changes in pediatric thought toward corporal punishment this article p rovides a useful framework for child health professionals struggling w ith the appropriateness of corporal punishment as a disciplinary techn ique. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.