Eliminating Corporal Punishment in Schools Part I - Azim Premji ...

Data Analysis2 Data AnalysisThe findings of the study are presented in this chapter along with data tables. The practice of corporalpunishment emerges as an everyday reality for Indian children irrespective of their gender, location in thecountry and the type of school they attend. It is apparent from the data that all types of Indian schools – private,Central Government run or State Government run – use the body as a site to control a child’s mind,thereby regulating his/her behaviour and learning.This chapter is divided into five sections. The first section presents overall trends of the data and somereflections on it. The second section presents details of children’s experiences of punishments in whichpain is inflicted directly by the actions of their teachers. The third section presents the data and trends ofpunishments in which a child’s body is used to inflict pain through different postures. The fourth sectionpresents the details of verbal abuse – situations where children are abused or threatened using abusivelanguage. The fifth section presents an analysis of the second part of the tool in which children were askedto project on to an illustration and make meaning of those illustrations. Information was gleaned from thisinteraction and recorded.Section I: Introducing the SampleThis section presents a general introduction to the sample of children who were interviewed for this study.The profile of the sample has been constructed along three dimensions – age, type of school and gender.Table 2.1: Age-wise distribution of the sampleAge group No. of children Percentage3–5 yrs 107 1.66 –9 yrs 1897 28.610–14 yrs 4193 63.215–17 yrs 365 5.5Did not report age 70 1.0Total 6632 100More than 90% participants (Table 2.1) are in the age-group 6-14 years studying in elementary grades(see Table 2.2).Table 2.3 gives the sex ratio of the sample. The number of girls is large enough to enable an interpolationof gender-based insights. In India today, the number of children studying in privately run schools is less thanthe number of children studying in the schools run by State Governments. The distribution of this randomsample as viewed across the three types of schools (schools run by State Governments, schools run by theCentral Government and private schools), reflects a similar trend (Table 2.4).13