Decolonizing Discipline: Children, Corporal Punishment, Christian Theologies, and Reconciliation

by Valerie E Michaelson (Editor), Joan E. Durrant (Editor)

In June 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released 94 Calls to Action that urged reform of policies and programs to repair the harms caused by the Indian Residential Schools. "Decolonizing Discipline" is a response to Call to Action 6––the call to repeal Section 43 of Canada’s Criminal Code, which justifies the corporal punishment of children. Editors Valerie Michaelson and Joan Durrant have brought together diverse voices to respond to this call and to consider the ways that colonial Western interpretations of Christian theologies have been used over centuries to normalize violence and rationalize the physical discipline of children. Theologians, clergy, social scientists, and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis leaders and community members explore the risks that corporal punishment poses to children and examine practical, non-violent approaches to discipline. The authors invite readers to participate in shaping this country into one that does not sanction violence against children. The result is a multifaceted exploration of theological debates, scientific evidence, and personal journeys of the violence that permeated Canada’s Residential Schools and continues in Canadian homes today. Together, they compel us to decolonize discipline in Canada.

280 pages, Paperback

Published September 4, 2020

Reviews

[Freya Abbas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is tremendously important. I know it came out quite recently, but I really hope this is a book that will circulate widely and won't just be limited to academic circles. I've always been really interested in Indigenous history and also in learning about how colonialism was used against children. I'm not as interested in christian theology, which is a huge focus of this book, although I still enjoyed reading those sections and I like that church members wrote sections of this book because they recognized the church's history of corporal punishment. I would say my favourite essays in here were the ones about Lakota and Inuit parenting. It would have been nice to include even more of these by people from other Indigenous nations/tribes who explain how they traditionally disciplined children without corporal punishment. This book was extremely interesting. I liked its interdisciplinary approach, combining arguments from psychology, theology, history, and Indigenous studies to make a really persuasive argument for why Canada should make corporal punishment illegal.