Narratives of Conflict, Belonging, and the State: Discourse and Social Life in Post-War Ireland (Routledge Studies in Linguistic Anthropology) by Brigittine M. French

Author:Brigittine M. French [French, Brigittine M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138744325
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2018-04-27T05:00:00+00:00

Fine

69

62.1

Adjournment

19

16.2

Dismissal

17

14.4

Unknown

 8

 7.2

(from above cases)

Threat of Industrial School

20

18.0

In Loco Parentis: Children, Physical Punishment, and Bodily Violence

In addition to the contingencies of state responses to truant youth that produced multiple outcomes in court cases, which were predicated upon some prior or future form of physical punishment for children, individuals and families were agents in challenging the children’s experiences of corporal punishment as a cumplusory part of their education. While Maquire and Ó Cinnéide (2005) have cogently argued, “It is clear from all the available evidence that corporal punishment was commonplace and that parents themselves generally supported a teacher’s right to punish their children” (639), this discourse-centered approach enables us to see how some families dynamically challenged state actors and critiqued teachers’ right to physically beat and harm their children in school.

On April 6, 1933, Ms. B Reynolds of Lahinch learned from her daughter that the local teacher, Miss Foley, had beaten the child with a ruler for being a persistent offender of school rules. The mother then went directly to the school to confront Foley, going so far as to physically assault her (Clare Champion, May 6, 1933b). A similar case happened in Sixmilebridge, when Michael Reddan went to the national public school to confront the local teacher who beat his 8-year-old orphaned cousin residing in the household. In this instance, Reddan not only struck the teacher in the heat of the moment, but later named the teacher’s action a form of violence against the child and further critiqued the system that allowed teachers to beat children in schools. When called before the court, Reddan directly challenged the teacher: “Why did you beat the child on two mornings? She is using terrible violence towards this child at school” (Clare Champion 1933a). After confronting the teacher, Reddan shifted addressees to denounce the teacher’s actions to the judge and listening/reading public, explicitly naming the beating a form of violence. As the case against Reddan progressed, he continued to attempt to shift the frame from his assault on the teacher to use the legal forum as a space to challenge the violent treatment of his cousin and other children in local schools.

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