What is it about?
This article reviews a change in international thinking about physical punishment of children from being a reasonable method of chastisement to one that is harmful to children and troubling to families. Two case studies serve to illustrate that banning physical punishment was less controversial in Ireland where allied traditions of patriarchy and disciplinarian Christian beliefs had lost their moral hegemony than in Ghana where such beliefs still held influence.
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Why is it important?
The article argues that campaigns against physical punishment of children emanate from a coherent paradigm of family policy where childcare, education, and well-being of children are embedded as everyday societal responsibilities rather than privatized or patriarchal familial obligations
Perspectives
The paper offers an alternative moral hegemony to neo-liberal, conservative and Janus-faced ideas of good or ‘intact’ families versus ‘broken’ or ‘troubled’ families.
Michael Rush
University College Dublin UCD
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘Troubling’ Chastisement: A Comparative Historical Analysis of Child Punishment in Ghana and Ireland, Sociological Research Online, January 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1360780417749250.
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