`He'll learn it on his body': Disciplining childhood in Canadian law

[ This chapter demonstrates the importance of understanding, in any examination of its putative effects, the history of the ban, the social context in which it emerged, and the Swedish research that has followed it. It illustrates the importance of gaining broader knowledge about the ban by critiquing the study conducted by Roberts (2000), the findings of which have suggested that the Swedish ban has not led to its desired effects. Legal reform began in 1928, when Sweden became one of the first countries to abolish corporal punishment in secondary schools. When the Swedish Commission on Children's Rights proposed the explicit corporal punishment ban in civil law, it did so with the expectation that any changes the ban precipitated would take time to be fully realized. The effect of Sweden's legal reforms has been much more than the mere transformation of individual attitudes or behaviour. Keywords:Children's Rights; legal reform; Roberts (2000); Sweden , This chapter aims to contribute to a process of developing a theoretical framework for understanding what we mean when we talk about 'children's participation'. It does this by mapping some of the territory denoted by 'children's participation', reviewing some of the criticisms that have made of participatory practice, and looking at some ways of conceptualising the field using a combination of existing models and new concepts from political and social theory, in particular from the work of Iris MarionYoung and Pierre Bourdieu. 'Participation' can refer generally to taking part in an activity, or specifically to taking part in decision-making. The chapter focuses largely on children's participation in the political world. Keywords:children's participation; Iris Marion Young; Pierre Bourdieu; political world ]