No description available.

La présente thèse avait pour but d’étudier les liens qui existaient entre la psychopathie du parent et les pratiques parentales utilisées. L’échantillon était composé de 65 parents francophones, hommes ou femmes, ayant au moins un enfant âgé entre 6 et 10 ans. Les parents ont été rencontrés à leur domicile, à l’école de leur enfant ou dans un organisme communautaire. Le Self Report Psychopathy Scale R12-III (Paulhus, Hemphill & Hare, sous presse) a été traduit en français pour la présente étude afin de mesurer la psychopathie du parent. La version francophone de l’Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Pauzé & al., 2004) a été utilisée pour mesurer cinq pratiques parentales : les pratiques éducatives positives, le manque de supervision, l’engagement, la discipline incohérente et les punitions corporelles. La version francophone de l’échelle de désirabilité sociale abrégée de Marlowe-Crowe (Crowe-Marlowe, 1960) a été jointe aux deux autres questionnaires (Bergeron, Valla & Breton, 1992). Des régressions simples ont été effectuées entre le score global de psychopathie et chacune des cinq pratiques parentales énumérées ci-dessus. Ensuite, des régressions multiples ont été exécutées afin de vérifier quel était le meilleur facteur de la psychopathie pouvant prédire chaque pratique parentale. Les résultats ont montré que la psychopathie était associée négativement de façon significative aux pratiques éducatives positives et à l’engagement. Un lien significatif positif a été soulevé entre la psychopathie et l’utilisation des punitions corporelles. Les analyses secondaires ont démontré que le facteur interpersonnel de la psychopathie expliquait une proportion significative des pratiques éducatives positives. Le facteur antisocial a prédit, quant à lui, une petite partie significative de l’engagement au-delà de l’explication fournie par la désirabilité sociale. Le style de vie du psychopathe a contribué à une proportion significative de l’explication de la variance des punitions corporelles. Il semblerait pertinent d’intervenir le plus tôt possible auprès du parent et de l’enfant afin d’éviter que les mauvaises pratiques et les traits psychopathes ne se répètent dans les générations futures. Des méthodes d’intervention ont été suggérées. Les forces et les faiblesses de l’étude ont été discutées. / The goal of the present thesis was to evaluate the associations between parental psychopathy and parenting methods. A total of sixty-five French parents, male or female, having at least one child between the ages of 6 and 10 year old, participated in the study. Parents were met at home, at their child’s school or in a community center. Parental psychopathy was measured by the Self Report Psychopathy Scale R12-III (Paulhus, Hemphill & Hare, sous presse) that had been translated into French for the purpose of the study. The French version of Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Pauzé & al., 2004) was used to assess positive reinforcement, lack of parental monitoring, parental involvement, consistency in applying discipline and corporal punishment. Social desirability was assessed using the French version of the short form of the Marlowe-Crowe (Crowe-Marlowe, 1960) scale (Bergeron, Valla & Breton, 1992). Regressions between psychopathy and parenting practices were used to explore the associations. Multiple regressions were used to examine if one of the four psychopathy factors could predict educational methods. Psychopathy was negatively associated with positive reinforcement and involvement. Psychopathy was related positively with corporal punishment. Of the four factors of psychopathy, the interpersonal dimension accounted for a significant explanation of positive reinforcement. The antisocial factor account for a significant incremental of the involvement variance after social desirability was controlled. Life style seemed to explain a significant account of corporal punishment. The results suggested that it would be important to take action as early as possible towards the parent and the child to prevent the transmission of less effective parenting methods and psychopathic traits in the future generations. Suggestions of interventions were made and the strengths and limitations of the study were discussed.

No description available.

Since becoming the first English speaking country to legislate against the physical discipline of children in 2007, there has been much debate in New Zealand for and against the parental practice of smacking. For some it has meant a welcome amendment to legislation that protects the human rights of children, for others it raises fears that parents can be criminalised for smacking their children and that the rights of parents to discipline their child, as they see fit, are being eroded. Working for an organisation that fully supports the Amendment to Section 59 of the Crimes Act, 1961 and that promotes the human rights of children; the motivating factors that encourage a parent to stop the practice of physically disciplining their child became of interest to the researcher for this thesis. Ten participants, who had used physical discipline and who had made a decision to stop the practice, were recruited to take part in a qualitative study. The data collected was analysed through a thematic analysis process using five motivational contexts found in previous research on the topic. The five contexts were experiential, relational, biographical, regulatory and ideological (Davis, 1999). The findings of the research for this thesis concur with the previous research and add further information about the motivating factors. The findings also identify the strategies that parents have found useful to achieve success in their endeavour to change their disciplinary practice. Furthermore the importance of and the distinction between the human rights of the child and parental rights have been highlighted.

Globally, there is an ongoing debate whether child corporal punishment should be banned or not in the home environment. While several countries have banned it already, South Africa is currently in a process of change. Research indicates that child corporal punishment is commonly used in South Africa and that social workers opinions on child corporal punishment seems to be formed by their personal experiences, which affects their assessments. Furthermore, according to research legal reforms are not enough to change a society’s attitudes and norms about child corporal punishment. There is a need of campaigns and leadership. The aim of this study was to comprehend how eight South African social workers described that they understood their professional role, when they worked with caregivers who used child corporal punishment. The informants worked, at the time of the interviews, at different workplaces in Cape Town and had experiences in their professional role of meeting caregivers who used child corporal punishment. Social constructionism was used as the theory of science. The study uses theories by Burr, Gergen and Gergen and Foucault to analyse the impacts of language and discourse in the social workers’ understandings. The empirical material was analysed with qualitative content analysis. We found four themes where all except the first one, are divided into two sub-themes. The first theme is ‘How could corporal punishment be defined?’. Followed by ‘Opinions about corporal punishment’ with the sub-themes: ‘We need one standard to protect our children’ and ‘Corporal punishment should be allowed if it is not abusive’. ‘The roles of the social worker’ is the third theme, divided into the two sub-themes: ‘Social workers and the law’ and ‘The opportunity to make a change’. The last theme is Challenges the social worker face, divided into the sub-themes ‘Corporal punishment rooted in a violent society’ and ‘Corporal punishment in a cultural society’. The results of the study indicate that most of the social workers understood their role, when they worked with caregivers who use child corporal punishment, was to educate by presenting other alternatives than corporal punishment. However, when exploring definitions, opinions, challenges and abilities they sometimes had quite different understandings to one another. Child corporal punishment would be defined both as equivalent as well as separated from abuse, creating confusion to where a line should be drawn. The caregivers’ rights to use corporal punishment would be compared to the children’s rights to be protected from it. Laws regarding child corporal punishment was both present and nonexistent in described assessments. The social workers action space varied greatly. They expressed the need to balance different aspects in the assessment and decide where to draw the line between them. Most of the informants, understood themselves as powerful to bring about change concerning the use of child corporal punishment in the specific families. However, they highlighted the challenges with South Africa’s history and general accepting of child corporal punishment. / Det pågår globalt en debatt om barnaga ska förbjudas i hemmen eller inte. Ett flertal länder har förbjudit barnaga och Sydafrika befinner sig för tillfället i en förändringsprocess. Forskning tyder på att barnaga är vanligt förekommande i Sydafrika och att socialarbetares åsikter om barnaga tycks ha sitt ursprung i deras egna erfarenheter, som i sin tur påverkar deras professionella bedömningar. Forskning visar även att juridiska reformer inte är tillräckligt för att förändra ett samhälles attityder och normer. Det finns ett behov av kampanjer och ledarskap. Syftet med denna studie var att förstå hur åtta sydafrikanska socialarbetare beskrev att de förstod sin professionella roll när de arbetade med vårdnadshavare som använde sig av barnaga. Informanterna arbetade när intervjuerna genomfördes på olika arbetsplatser i Kapstaden och hade erfarenhet i deras professionella roll av att träffa vårdnadshavare som använda sig av barnaga. Studien utgår från socialkonstuktionism som vetenskapsteori. I studien används även teorier från Burr, Gregen och Gregen samt Foucault för att analysera språket och diskursers påverkan i socialarbetarnas förståelser. Det empiriska materialet analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Vi fann fyra teman där de tre senare hade två underteman vardera. Det första temat är ‘How could corporal punishment be defined?’. Följt av ‘Opinions about corporal punishment’ med underteman: ‘We need one standard to protect our children’ och ‘Corporal punishment should be allowed if it is not abusive’. ‘The roles of the social worker’ är det tredje temat, uppdelat i de två underteman: ‘Social workers and the law’ och ‘The opportunity to make a change’. Det sista temat är ‘Challenges the social worker face’ som delades in i underteman ‘Corporal punishment rooted in a violent society’ och ‘Corporal punishment in a cultural society’. Studiens resultat indikerar att de flesta socialarbetarna förstod sin roll i arbetet med vårdnadshavare som använde sig av barnaga, var att utbilda genom att presentera andra alternativ än barnaga. Gällande definitioner, åsikter, utmaningar och förmågor så hade de ofta olika förståelser. Barnaga definierades både som motsvarande såväl som separat från misshandel, vilket skapade förvirring gällande var gränsen borde dras däremellan. Vårdnadshavarnas rätt att använda barnaga ställdes i kontrast mot barnens rätt att bli skyddade från det. Lagar gällande barnaga var både närvarande och frånvarande I de olika svaren informanterna gav. Socialarbetarnas handlingsutrymme hade stor variation och de uttryckte hur de behövde balansera olika aspekter i mötet med vårdnadshavarna och var gränser skulle dras mellan dem. De flesta informanterna upplevde sin roll som maktfull att skapa förändring i familjerna de mötte där barnaga användes. Trots detta betonade dem utmaningarna med Sydafrikas historia och generella acceptans av barnaga.

Managing discipline in schools is one of the fundamentals of effective teaching and learning. It is evident that ineffective discipline management in schools would eventually jeopardize the efficacy of teaching and learning. So, it is crucial that legitimate, democratic disciplinary measures and procedures should be employed. The aim of this study was to investigate ways of managing discipline in selected secondary schools within Sekhukhune District, Limpopo. A qualitative research approach was chosen, employing research methods which included individual interviews, focus group interviews and non-participant observation. The investigation focused on four secondary schools which were purposefully sampled to participate in the study. The research concentrated only on the views of the educators and the principals. This investigation revealed that principals and educators still find themselves in a predicament in applying contemporary disciplinary measures due to a lack of training or minimal training regarding alternatives to corporal punishment. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

The following research question motivated this study: How can effective discipline in school and classroom management be maintained? To answer this, a school was selected which had excellent discipline as demonstrated by its good matriculation results. Discipline in this school was researched by means of a qualitative approach. Phenomenological interviews and focus group interviews were conducted, transcribed and analysed. This was complemented by observation. Findings indicated that aspects of school system (including school and classroom policy, the role of the standard tutor and of bodies such as the school governing body and the learners' representative council as well as the specific disciplinary actions used) are important in maintaining discipline at school. The discipline, dedication, motivation and teamwork of educators as role models for children are also significant. Moreover, the learners themselves as well as the cooperation and involvement of their parents play a vital role in maintaining discipline. / Educational Leadership and Management / M.A. (Educational Management)

Magister Legum - LLM / South Africa

This study assessed the implementation of learner discipline policies in the Graaff Reinet District in four township Secondary schools. The study arose as a result of the decline of learner discipline in secondary schools. This study is located in the interpretive paradigm and adopted a qualitative research approach in the collection of data. It employed triangulation to collect data and obtained valuable information on the implementation of learner discipline policies. Four township secondary schools in the Graaff Reinet District were purposively selected for the sample in this study. Semi-structured interviews, focus groups of learners and parents Data has revealed that schools were using different strategies to implement learner discipline such as Code of Conduct, Disciplinary hearing, Safety and Security Committee, Educators, Corporal Punishment, Alternative methods to Corporal Punishment and the role parents. Data revealed that there has been no success in implementing learner discipline strategies. There were a number of limitations in implementing policies to maintain learner disciplines which were identified in the study. There were inconsistencies like educators not supervising learners in detention classes, some of the educators were sabotaging the system by not putting into practice the measures and strategies which were put in place to maintain discipline and so forth. The School Management Teams did not capacitate the Representative Council of Learners so as to assist in the monitoring of discipline. The Department of Education is not supportive in the maintenance of discipline in the schools under study in Graaff Reinet District. To address disciplinary problems, the study has the following key recommendations Policies should be crafted by all stakeholders for ownership and there should be collaboration in implementation of those policies.. The Code of Conduct should be issued to all learners at the school at the beginning of the year in the language of preference, with school rules. Learners should know the consequences of transgressing the Code of Conduct. SMTs should adopt different management styles so as to take action against educators who are failing the system of maintaining discipline. Educators should realise that it is their duty to maintain discipline in schools; therefore they should stop complaining about disciplinary problems. Educators should engage the Department of Education to conduct workshops in building capacity of educators to maintain learner discipline. Schools should establish partnerships with other sister Departments such as SAPS, Social Development, Correctional Services, Health to, maintain learner discipline.

This study explores the relationship between ethnicity and level of religiosity, and parental or caregiver practices of physical punishment as a discipline style.