To smack or not to smack, is that the question? : the social perspectives on the issue of child discipline held by a cohort of mothers in Aotearoa New Zealand and what they indicate : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
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Date
2015
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Massey University
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Abstract
The response to the legislative change in New Zealand that occurred in 2007 on the physical
discipline of children precipitated more public submissions to the government than any other piece of
legislation in New Zealand history. The debates over the Crimes (Substituted section 59) Amendment
Act 2007 (formerly known as section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961) provided a social context for this
study of what contributed to the intense national debates within academia, families, and public arenas
over such issues as children’s rights, parental rights, the socialisation of children, religion and the role
of government. Parenting styles and the effectiveness and outcomes of smacking were a particular
focus of much of this debate. This research was undertaken in the context of these debates, and
established five research aims for a thesis that set out to explore the connections between mothers’
viewpoints on physical discipline and the wider issues that surround the complex and often
contradictory spaces where the physical discipline of children is debated and discussed. The first four
aims were addressed through four detailed reviews of literature with the overall purpose of breaking
down and laying out the complexity of the debates that underpin any understanding of child
discipline. The first review highlighted definitional issues relevant to this thesis, and included
statutory definitions where appropriate. The second review explored and outlined evidence from a
wide range of literature that contextualised the issue of physical discipline in and through the
legislative debates surrounding the Crimes (Substituted section 59) Amendment Act 2007 in New
Zealand. The third review outlined conceptual frameworks through which issues of child
socialisation and discipline are commonly explained in order to frame the previous legislative
discussion from a different perspective. The fourth and final review piece examined the issue of
physical discipline and its potential impact on children and their socialisation. The abductive nature
of this research meant that there was recursive movement between the empirical research and the
bodies of literature that surround the research question. For the purposes of presentation, the
literature reviews are introduced at the outset whereas they were undertaken before, after and during
the empirical Q work. The summation of insights from the literature reviews, however, set the scene
for the final aim, to identify the social perspectives on the issue of child discipline held by a cohort of
mothers in New Zealand. They provide context for further understanding the identified social
perspectives on the issue of child discipline held by a cohort of mothers in New Zealand through the
social perspectives that emerged. The substantive field work undertaken to ground the conceptual
material outlined through the reviews explored the attitudes and beliefs of mothers towards physical
discipline and sought to identify explanatory inferences that could be drawn from those social
perspectives in relation to the sharp divide amongst mothers in New Zealand about the use of physical
discipline when raising children. This thesis, both the reviews and the field work components, relied
on abductive logic generally and the use of Q-methodology specifically to elicit the social
perspectives from the cohort of mothers. These revealed perspectives were then read against a range
of social theories including Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological theory and attachment theory, amongst
others. Two clear social perspectives were identified through the Q analysis: “a smack is more than a
smack” and “a smack is nothing more than a smack”. These viewpoints were explored in relation to
the wider literature on physical discipline, which pointed to the grey area between physical discipline
and child abuse. Many of the issues dealt with in the literature assume the importance of specific
behaviours including such things as whether a child was smacked with the palm of the hand or an
implement, either on the buttocks or near the face, the severity of the smack, the age of the child, the
anger of the parent, how harsh or how many smacks and, sporadically, the context in which the smack
took place. Traditionally, little attention has been given to the wider socialisation processes reflected
through the attitudes and beliefs of the mother and her relationship with the child. It is argued in this
thesis that: (1) conversations about the physical discipline of children need to shift from assumptions
about what constitutes physical discipline to the establishment of a clear definition of physical
discipline in order for useful research to be undertaken, and only once this is done, to (2) consider
how a light smack may (or may not) impact on relationships with children, what it teaches (both
parents and children) through socialisation processes about how to relate, and what such discipline
indicates for intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships during times of frustration or conflict that
arise when parenting. By providing a more nuanced study of this controversial issue, the findings
from this research contribute to a more socially embedded understanding of parent child relationship
and the thesis adds a new perspective to the existing literature on the physical discipline of children.
Encouraging consideration of socialisation processes rather than the nature of ill-defined disciplinary
behaviours have significant implications for social policy and family support development both
nationally and internationally.
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Keywords
Discipline of children, corporal punishment, New Zealand