Nelson Mandela's adage, "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends" captures the profoundly inclusive nature of restorative justice (RJ). The hallmark of RJ is intentionally bringing together people with seemingly diametrically opposed viewpoints--particularly people who have harmed with people who have been harmed--in a carefully…

This article examines corporal punishment in U.S. public schools, proposes a national conversation regarding its use, and advocates for a national policy to promote nonviolent discipline methods and prohibit corporal punishment of children in educational settings. The United States remains one of the few postmodern societies without a national…

Because the relationship between school disciplinary models and truancy outcomes is unknown, it is difficult for school leaders to understand the costs and benefits of punitive versus nonpunitive discipline. To achieve the State of Georgia's stated policy objectives of lowering truancy and its negative outcomes, this knowledge gap needs to be…

The contrasting careers of two government-sponsored commissions of inquiry in the late 1960s are the focus of this paper, which examines what can be learnt from them about the impact, or lack of impact, of such bodies on policy making. The Wootton Report on cannabis, published in 1968, had its recommendations rejected by the government that had…

Perceptual deterrence has been an enduring focus of interest in criminology. Although recent research has generated important new insights about how risks, costs, and rewards of offending are perceived and internalized, there remain two specific limitations to advancing theories of deterrence: (a) the lack of panel data to show whether issues of…

In this commentary on the special series, I argue that whereas a zero-tolerance approach to school discipline is "something stupid" (Kauffman & Brigham, 2000) the use of suspension might not be. Despite its limitations, suspension and other forms of punishment serve as effective deterrents of behavior problems for most children, especially when…

The purpose of this study was to examine college students' perceptions of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and identify contributing factors that influence perceptions and reactions to students with ASD. Participants included 1,185 college students who responded to a survey in class or online. Trends in responses suggested that…

The purpose of this paper was to investigate Malaysian primary pre-service teachers' perceptions of students' disruptive behaviour and their self-reported strategies to prevent and to manage such behaviours. Results indicate that Malaysian pre-service teachers understand disruptive behaviours to be those that disrupt the learning and teaching…

It is seldom useful to try to persuade staff to abandon coercive methods in the moment when they are angry or frustrated with students. Instead, these topics can be discussed during new employee orientation and in ongoing staff development. Ironically, many staff members share that in their own roles as parents they seldom rely on spanking or…

Between the ages of 4 and 8 children increasingly make moral judgments on the basis of an actor's intent, as opposed to the outcome that the actor brings about. Does this reflect a reorganization of concepts in the moral domain, or simply the development of capacities outside the moral domain such as theory of mind and executive function?…

This paper is concerned with the rise of 'the boot camp' as a means of addressing "the problem of troubled youth" in contemporary industrialised nations such as Australia and the UK. Drawing on a corpus of publicly available material including press releases and policy documents, media reports, and programme websites, the paper explores…

Militarization and a military definition of life and culture have become normalized in the United States. This article explores the ways in which a military metaphysics has become the new normal for a nation not only at war abroad but also at home, especially with regards to the ongoing assaults waged by the state against youth, immigrants, and…

Current evolutionary and cognitive theories of religion posit that supernatural agent concepts emerge from cognitive systems such as theory of mind and social cognition. Some argue that these concepts evolved to maintain social order by minimizing antisocial behavior. If these theories are correct, then people should process information about…

When we look in depth at how the experience of education was represented in American culture, we find evidence of visual tropes representing evolving but persistent aspects of the experience of schooling, such as the performance of judgement, and the desire to know the world. These tropes were rendered in terms of pictorial conventions that went…

Workplace absenteeism has widely been reported to be a serious problem which undermines smooth service delivery both in developed and developing nations. The problem is reported to be more serious in developing nations. This paper is therefore studying the mechanisms used to mitigate workplace absenteeism, their adequacy and the effective…