Attitudes of parents, teachers and adolescents on the cultural practice of physical punishment for behaviour management of Solwezi District
type: CreativeWork
description: The study aimed at examining the attitudes of parents, teachers, and adolescents on the cultural practice of physical punishment; and parents and teachers’ practices in the behaviour management of their children. The research design used two questionnaire scales; the first was employed to measure the attitudes of parents, teachers and adolescents and the second was administered on parents and teachers to identify their childrearing practices. The third instrument was a focus group discussion guide administered on the three respondents. A randomly and purposively selected sample of 376 participants from schools in Solwezi District took part in the study. The results by way of ANOVAs and Post Hoc analyses showed that there were significant main effect differences across groups in their attitudes towards the cultural practice of physical punishment [F(2,310) = 26.733, p < .05] Clear-cut significant differences were observed between teachers and parents (p < .05); and between teachers and adolescents (p < .05). Parents and adolescents consistently posted similar and non-significant differences (p = .9780) on the cultural practice of physical punishment. The respondents indicated that physical punishment was not appropriate in child behaviour management strategies due to its negative effects. Notable was the finding that the majority of the respondents were neutral on whether physical punishment was appropriate as a childrearing strategy. It appeared some communities in Zambia were experiencing a transitional period influenced by cultural dynamism, human rights and modernity causing some debate on its appropriateness. Parents were more positive in the use of childrearing practices with physical punishment endorsement than teachers [t = 2.268, df(161), p =.025]; a reversal of the response on the attitude scale. In addition, parents and teachers appeared to use child behaviour management techniques sparingly opting more of shouting at children or reinforcing positive behav…
abstract: The study aimed at examining the attitudes of parents, teachers, and adolescents on the cultural practice of physical punishment; and parents and teachers’ practices in the behaviour management of their children. The research design used two questionnaire scales; the first was employed to measure the attitudes of parents, teachers and adolescents and the second was administered on parents and teachers to identify their childrearing practices. The third instrument was a focus group discussion guide administered on the three respondents. A randomly and purposively selected sample of 376 participants from schools in Solwezi District took part in the study. The results by way of ANOVAs and Post Hoc analyses showed that there were significant main effect differences across groups in their attitudes towards the cultural practice of physical punishment [F(2,310) = 26.733, p < .05] Clear-cut significant differences were observed between teachers and parents (p < .05); and between teachers and adolescents (p < .05). Parents and adolescents consistently posted similar and non-significant differences (p = .9780) on the cultural practice of physical punishment. The respondents indicated that physical punishment was not appropriate in child behaviour management strategies due to its negative effects. Notable was the finding that the majority of the respondents were neutral on whether physical punishment was appropriate as a childrearing strategy. It appeared some communities in Zambia were experiencing a transitional period influenced by cultural dynamism, human rights and modernity causing some debate on its appropriateness. Parents were more positive in the use of childrearing practices with physical punishment endorsement than teachers [t = 2.268, df(161), p =.025]; a reversal of the response on the attitude scale. In addition, parents and teachers appeared to use child behaviour management techniques sparingly opting more of shouting at children or reinforcing positive behav…
author: Monde, Wamundila Collins
language: en
keywords: Discipline of children-Solwezi, Zambia, Punishment(School discipline)-Zambia, Educational Sociology-study and teaching-Zambia, Child education-Behaviour, Characteristics, Management
date published: 2015-11-24
date modified: 2026-07-27T22:06:53Z
provider: University of Zimbabwe
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Zimbabwe