No Longer a ‘Last Resort’: The End of Corporal Punishment in the Schools of Toronto.

In 1971, following a protracted and tumultuous debate, the Toronto Board of Education formally abolished the use of corporal punishment in its schools – the first Ontario board to do so. Corporal punishment continued to be employed elsewhere in Ontario and throughout Canada well into the 1980s, and the use of physical discipline was prohibited in all Canadian schools only in 2004, following a ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada. Why did educators and legislators defend corporal punishment for so long, and why did the tide turn in the last part of the twentieth century? Concentrating on legal and political dynamics, this article explores the ways in which the Toronto Board of Education grappled with the issue of corporal punishment in the three decades before its abolition. It seeks to situate the story of Toronto's approach to school discipline on the broader social landscape on which the battle over corporal punishment was conducted. It concludes that the particular configuration of the Toronto Board of Education following trustee elections in 1969 strongly affected the shape and outcome of the corporal punishment debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]