Title I Middle School Administrators' Beliefs and Choices About Using Corporal Punishment and Exclusionary Discipline

• In Event: 72.015 - Moral Reasoning as a Compass: School Leadership for Caring and Inclusive Schools

Abstract

This grounded theory of how Title I middle school administrators determine which punishments to assign in response to students’ challenging behaviors was developed using interviews with 27 administrators from schools allowing corporal punishment (CP) and nine from schools that do not. During discipline events, administrators contended with contextual factors that shaped possibilities for how they negotiated their simultaneous desires to develop the child while also deterring future misbehavior. Although they did not identify a tension between these goals, they described the outcomes of their decision-making as emotional work entailing the enactment of contradictions and compromises. Implications include the need to view CP as one form of punitive discipline in a national context requiring the transformation of all school discipline practices.

Authors

• Brianna L. Kennedy-Lewis, University of Florida

• Amy S Murphy, University of Georgia

• Adam Jordan, University of Florida

• Joseph C. Gagnon, University of Florida