Nonviolent education: body punishments less and less accepted

Just under 25 years ago, violence in education was banned by law in Germany, according to Unicef: Acceptance of physical punishment is lower than ever before.

BERLIN/KÖLN/ULM. Just under 25 years ago, Germany wanted to put an end to violence in child education and legally enshrined the right to non-violent education. A recent survey now shows that the measure was successful, even if the path to genuine non-violence is still far away. Because millions of German body and mental punishments continue to be "reasonable". The initiators of the study, including the Kinderhilfswerk Unicef, raise the alarm – a…

April 30 is World Day Against Beating Children – an international holiday that has been a reminder of the need to eliminate physical violence from upbringing since 2006. The Catholic Church, as well as many institutions and environments, firmly oppose the use of corporal punishment against children and often remind us of this. The Church not only recognizes violence as a grave sin, but also The article Church, law and society against violence ag…

Unicef Germany, together with the University of Ulm, has found that body sentences in the education of about two thirds of the respondents are rejected in 2025. Thus, almost 25 years after the admission of non-violent education into the Civil Code (BGB), the proportion of people who use violence or consider it appropriate continues to decline. In 2005 about three quarters of the respondents found a "clap on their backs" as an educational method …

Just under 25 years after the legal anchoring of non-violent education in the Civil Code (BGB), the social acceptance of physical punishment is as low as never before. This is shown by a current, representative survey of the Clinic for Child and Youth Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy at Ulm University Hospital in cooperation with UNICEF Germany on the occasion of the day of non-violent education on 30 April.