III. Methodology

This report is based on 202 in-person and telephone interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union between December 2007 and June 2009. Some of these interviews were used for a 2008 ACLU/Human Rights Watch report, A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in US Public Schools. Telephone interviews were conducted from Human Rights Watch or ACLU offices in New York.

We conducted interviews with experts and individuals directly affected by corporal punishment, including parents, students, teachers, administrators, and special education professionals. We interviewed 32 parents of students with disabilities, 18 teachers who have relevant experience, and 15 officials (including current and former school board members, superintendents, principals, and assistant principals). In addition, we spoke with lawyers, advocates for students with disabilities, and educational experts to obtain information on all sides of the issue.

We spoke directly with students who had been subjected to corporal punishment, including students with and without disabilities. Where students were too young, had disabilities that impeded their ability to participate comfortably in an interview, or faced possible trauma, we spoke instead with their parents. This report incorporates data from the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which measure prevalence of corporal punishment (and other school discipline and educational tracking data) by school district, race, gender, and enrollment in special education programming, among other criteria. The OCR data provide the most reliable numbers presently available on the use of corporal punishment in US public schools. However, as discussed in this report, those numbers are likely undercounted, in part because routine violence against students with disabilities is not always reported to OCR. Before interviewing any subject, we obtained written or oral consent to use the information obtained in the interview, and we determined whether the interviewee wished to remain anonymous. We obtained written consent from all in-person interviews, oral consent from those interviewed by telephone, and parental consent to speak to minors aged 16 or younger. Participants did not receive any material compensation in return for speaking with us. All participants were informed of the purpose of the interview, its voluntary nature, and the ways in which the data would be collected and used. All children interviewed or discussed in this report are identified with pseudonyms to safeguard their privacy and ensure there is no retaliation against them. Because parents' names could be used to identify children, parents are referred to only by first name and first initial of the last name. In addition, all parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, or other adults who requested confidentiality are identified by pseudonyms, and this is indicated in the relevant citations. In some cases, certain other identifying information such as school, town, or grade level also has been withheld for the same reasons.