School ban on hugging "misguided"

photo of two newly graduated people hugging

A secondary school in Croydon has apparently banned pupils from physical contact with one another, including hugging, high fives and shaking hands. The schools says reduces bullying and fighting, but Dr Mary Jane Kehily, OU senior lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies, disagrees.

As a tactic to reduce violence, banning physical contact is "hopelessly misguided" says Dr Kehily. "If you increase regulation, that also increases the potential for trangression. Young people are very creative about transgressing adult boundaries."

So if having rules means chidren are more likely to break them, is there nothing schools can do to combat bullying? "Any initiative has to be done in consultation with the young people who are going to be on the receiving end of it. The most effective form of regulation is the peer group."

Dr Kehily argues that a touching ban has all the hallmarks of a moral panic – an over-the-top response to an exaggerated fear, a phenomenon well-known to social scientists. "Every now and then there is a moral panic about the kind of contact children have with other people, usually motivated by safety or sexuality. You get things like banning conkers in schools or stopping male teachers attending to girls who have fallen over in the playground. Parents are fearful too.

"What particularly strikes me with this is the focus on the negative aspects of physical contact. We are probably more tactile and in touch with our bodies in childhood than at any other point in our lives. Children at play bumping into one another and touching one another all the time, and that sensory experience is an essential part of childhood. If the headmaster at that school had spent half an hour just watching children in a playground, he would have seen this."

Dr Mary Jane Kehily has a particular interest in youth cultures, school-based cultures and the everyday experiences of children and young people. She is a member of the academic team working on U212 Childhood and KE308 Youth: perspectives and practice. Her research project Childhood in Crisis looks at how moral panics and social anxiety impact on children and parenting.

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Tweet A secondary school in Croydon has apparently banned pupils from physical contact with one another, including hugging, high fives and shaking hands. The schools says reduces bullying and fighting, but Dr Mary Jane Kehily, OU senior lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies, disagrees. As a tactic to reduce violence, banning physical contact is "hopelessly ...