Project description
Understanding the origins of harsh parenting
Harsh parenting (HP) – the use of corporal and/or emotional punishment to discipline children – is a widespread and persistent practice. Despite well-documented physical and psychological harm, HP remains prevalent across many regions and demographic groups. The ERC-funded HARSH project investigates the broader, structural drivers of HP, moving beyond the usual focus on individual and family-level determinants. Specifically, it will assess how ancestral cultural traditions, sudden institutional changes, and large-scale economic shocks influence parenting behaviour – both in the past and in the present, and across different geographic regions.
Objective
Harsh parenting (HP) is the use of corporal or emotional punishment to discipline children. Despite harming children both physically and psychologically, it is widespread and persistent in certain regions and demographic groups. Why?
Existing studies on the causes of HP predominantly focus on individual and family factors, ignoring wider contextual factors influencing childrearing practices. Motivated by an ecological framework, HARSH marks a paradigm shift in understanding HP by explicitly exploring cultural, institutional, and economic causes for the first time.
It has four main related objectives: 1) Uncover the ancestral cultural origins explaining long-term HP persistence. 2) Identify the causal impact of economic factors. 3) Assess the influence of institutional structures and policies. 4) Unpack the mechanisms through which these contextual factors shape HP.
HARSH reaches its goals in four transformative ways. a) Focusing on Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, leveraging on their differences in socio-economic development, stages of demographic transitions and HP prevalence. b) Utilizing new highly disaggregated data across space and time enabling analysis of HP variations within and between countries, ethnic groups, and cohorts. c) Employing innovative methodologies including spatial analysis, and quantitative economic techniques, which are uncommon in studies on violence against children, but crucial to derive causal pathways. d) Identifying innovative socio-economic mechanisms, as well as the population subgroups most at risk.
HARSH pioneers new research avenues by offering unique, hypothesis-driven, empirical insights into the wider factors behind HP needed to fully grasp the reasons why parents adopt it. It offers an interdisciplinary perspective by using novel methods to test hypotheses from demography, psychology, and medicine. It supplies key scientific evidence for devising effective policies to tackle this major yet often hidden public health issue.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
40126 Bologna
Italy
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.