Adolescent Attitudes, Peer Norms, and Teacher Corporal Punishment in Five Sub-Saharan African Countries.
Outcomes: Gender‑Based Violence
View SourceKey Social Norms Take-aways Adolescents’ attitudes and their broader peer normative environments are important determinants of vulnerability to teacher corporal punishment. Schools function as “normative ecosystems”: when violent discipline is collectively accepted, it may give teachers greater social license to use it and reduce adolescents’ resistance or reporting. Legal prohibitions alone are therefore insufficient; prevention should shift collective expectations among students, teachers, families, and school communities, while recognizing gender-specific vulnerabilities.
Objectives To examine whether adolescents’ own endorsement of corporal punishment and peer normative environments are associated with experiencing teacher-perpetrated corporal punishment, and whether these relationships vary by gender and across Eswatini, Mozambique, Kenya, Namibia, and Lesotho.
Methods The study analyzed nationally representative Violence Against Children Surveys from 10,904 school-going adolescents aged 13–17 years across five countries. Individual attitudes were measured using two questions assessing whether adolescents believed parents or teachers must physically punish children to raise or educate them properly. Peer norms were operationalized as the proportion of other adolescents within the same local survey cluster who endorsed corporal punishment, excluding each respondent’s own response. Survey-weighted logistic regression examined associations with past-year teacher physical punishment, followed by country-specific analyses and random-effects meta-analysis. Models also examined gender interactions and adjusted for demographic, household, parenting, home corporal punishment, and violence-condoning gender attitudes.
Results Overall, 13.6% experienced teacher physical punishment in the previous year, 52.8% endorsed corporal punishment, and average peer endorsement was 53%. Adolescents who endorsed corporal punishment had twice the adjusted odds of reporting teacher violence (adjusted odds ratio 2.1, 95% confidence interval 1.6–2.7), while each 10-percentage-point increase in peer endorsement was associated with a 10% increase in odds (adjusted odds ratio 1.1, 95% confidence interval 1.0–1.2). Boys generally reported greater exposure, but girls who personally endorsed corporal punishment while embedded in highly accepting peer environments faced elevated risk. Associations also varied substantially across countries and were strongest in Kenya.
Conclusions Adolescents’ attitudes and peer social norms are important factors associated with teacher corporal punishment. Efforts to eliminate violent discipline should complement legal bans and teacher-focused approaches with adolescent engagement, peer-led and whole-school norm change, positive discipline, and coordinated family-school strategies that reduce the social acceptability of corporal punishment.
Norms Addressed
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