Corporal punishment—usually referring to adults hitting children—was abolished in South Africa in 1997. The Constitutional Court had already ruled it incompatible with the bill of rights in 1995. In that judgment, the chief justice said that in his view, “juvenile whipping is cruel, it is inhuman and it is degrading”—as well as “unnecessary.” The South African Schools Act of 1996 also outlawed it. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that this practice is still common in many schools and homes. Educational psychologist Simangele Mayisela researched the subject for her 2017 doctorate, asking why some teachers and parents (and even children) believed it was an effective and harmless form of discipline.
Why do South African teachers still threaten children with a beating? A psychologist explains
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A new study on how U.S. defense attorneys think about autism and use strategies informed by neurodiversity in their work finds that attorneys saw autism through a medical lens and acknowledged the need for better [...]
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More than two years of war in Gaza have left many Palestinian children too weak to learn or play and convinced they will be “killed for being Gazans,” a new report warns. The University of [...]
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Older adults tend to do well at identifying falsehoods in experiments, but they’re also likelier than younger adults to like and share misinformation online.This post was originally published on this site
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Researchers at the University of Basel have developed a tool that measures when people engage in dialog across political divides. The results show that personal factors play a greater role in people’s willingness to engage [...]
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Donald Trump joked in 2016 that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose support. In 2024, after two impeachments and 34 felony convictions, he has more or [...]
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In 2025, youth-led protests erupted everywhere from Morocco to Nepal, Madagascar and Europe. A generation refused to remain silent in the face of economic precariousness, corruption and eroding democratic norms and institutions.This post was originally [...]
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By any measure, 2025 was not a good year for world peace.This post was originally published on this site
