Corporal punishment and gender equality: regimes of care and rights in South African schools

ABSTRACT

Many policy interventions designed to achieve gender equality in education are predicated on the assumption that the enforcement of a human rights framework will promote equality and reduce (gender) inequalities. In South Africa, the ending of apartheid led to the introduction of a rights-based constitution in 1996. In line with this Constitution the education system was overhauled and a new Act, the South African Education Act of 1996 came into force. Despite one of the most progressive constitutions in the world and the authority of the Education Act, progress has been limited towards reducing gender inequality and gender-based violence. In this paper we focus on the continuing illegal use of corporal punishment (CP) to explore the limitations of a right-based approach to gender transformation in schools. Drawing on research undertaken in schools of vastly different socio-economic status we argue that rights-based approaches against CP resonate most in middle-class schools that have close links to formal work. In contrast, in other schools, certain types of CP have persisted often with the approval of parents and learners where they are thought of as a caring and necessary means to redress schooling inequities.

KEYWORDS:

• Violence
• masculinities
• education
• discipline
• socio-economic status

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This interview was undertaken in 2012. See Hunter (2019) for more details on the interview process and ethical clearance.2019

2. See the recollection by former student Cyril Gamede, who went on to become the chief executive of Umgeni Water. ‘Successful school gone wrong’, Sunday Independent – IOL, 25 June 2014, www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/success ful-school-gone-wrong-1,708,766 (accessed 25 October 2016).

3. For example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7KjpoN8dy4 ‘A KZN teacher filmed meting out corporal punishment to pupils suspended’ SABC News, 28 June 2016.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Hunter

Mark Hunter works at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He is the author ofLove in The Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender and Rights in South Africa (2010, Indiana and KwaZulu-Natal presses) and Race for Education: Gender, White Tone and Schooling in South Africa (2019, Cambridge University Press). Other areas he has worked on or is working on include drugs, language, masculinities, HIV in Brazil, and the political economy of love.

Robert Morrell

Robert Morrell works at the University of Cape Town and is the author ofFrom Boys to Gentleman (2001) and (with Debbie Epstein, Elaine Unterhalter, Deevia Bhana and Relebohile Moletsane) of Towards Gender Equality. South African schools during the HIV and AIDS pandemic (2009). Amongst his edited works are Changing Men in Southern Africa (2001), African Masculinities (with Lahoucine Ouzgane) (2005) and Baba: Men and Fatherhood in South Africa (with Linda Richter) (2006) and Books and Babies: Pregnancy and Parenthood in South African Schools (with Deevia Bhana and Tamara Shefer) (2012). His current work is on Southern Theory and the geopolitics of knowledge production.