Explaining School Corporal Punishment: Evangelical Protestantism and Social Capital in a Path Model

• NCJ Number: 216760
• Journal: Social Justice Research Volume: 19 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2006 Pages: 471-499
• Author(s): Stephen S. Owen; Kenneth Wagner
• Date Published: December 2006
• Length: 29 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the factors predictive of the use of school corporal punishment across 14,681 school districts in the United States.

Abstract

The findings suggest that two factors--the rate of evangelical protestant adherence and the amount of State-level social capital--significantly predicted whether or not States used corporal punishment in their schools as well as the prevalence of State-level school corporal punishment. Other findings revealed a negative relationship between evangelical Protestantism and social capital while mainstream Protestantism had no relationship to social capital. The findings provide empirical support for the long-standing claim that the use of corporal punishment is rooted in a specific sectarian religious worldview. A two-stage research model was employed. In the first stage (study 1), logistic regression analyses were used to examine whether two factors--social capital and rate of evangelical protestant adherents--significantly predicted whether or not a State used corporal punishment in its schools. In the second stage (study 2), results from study 1 were used to develop a path model predicting State-level variations in the rate of school corporal punishment. The path model contained three factors related to school corporal punishment: social capital, rate of evangelical protestant adherents, and rate of mainstream protestant adherents. For study 1, data on the total number of incidents of corporal punishment were drawn from the 2000 Elementary and Secondary School Survey, conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights; 14,681 school districts provided data for the survey. Data on predictor variables were drawn from the 2000 United States Census and from the American Religion Data Archive. Data on State-level social capital were estimated using the Social Capital Index (Putnam 2000). Future research should clarify the relationship between religion and social capital and should attempt to explain differences in social capital generation between religious groups. Tables, figures, footnotes, references