Straus, Murray A.

"Discipline and Deviance: Physical Punishment of Children and

Violence and Other Crime in Adulthood." Social Problems. 38.2 (1991): 133.

Print.

The author, Dr. Murray Straus, was a professor of sociology at the university of

New Hampshire. His research focused mainly on the topics of child discipline and

corporal punishment. He obtained his bachelors and doctoral degrees from the

university of Wisconsin. He also received the Ernest W. Burgess ward which is given

biennially to whom is recognized as having achieved outstanding scholarly research in

the field of family studies.

Dr. Straus paper is a study done on the data collected from a survey about the

use of corporal punishment and its effect on children. The main purpose of the paper is

to be theoretical and suggestive towards what corporal punishment can lead to if not

performed correctly based on collected data. One of the main points addressed in his

paper is the cultural spillover theory. It states that violence in one aspect of someones

life can lead to violence in other parts of their life. This was the main basis for his

argument that the use of corporal punishment of a child at home can lead to them

expressing this violence in places outside the home such as school. The study found

that roughly 90% of parents used some form of corporal punishment on children of ages

3 to 6 years old. The study also found that parents who approved the use of corporal

punishment were more likely to use it.

According to The New Hampshire Child Abuse Survey, roughly half of the

parents disagreed with the statement, parents have the right to slap their

teenage children who talk back to them however, one out of six parents
 disagreed that spanking children helps them to be better people when they grow

up

I felt that the paper was overall okay, but it was very theoretical and what

if. A majority of the assumptions seemed to be based on data that appeared to

be circumstantial. Also, the data was collected from a survey that was for

something else, not this specific study. Therefore, it gave the impression that the

author was selectively choosing information to make his point.