Tawse Tawse The tawse, sometimes formerly spelled taws (the plural of Scots taw, a thong of a whip) is an implement used for corporal punishment. It was used for educational discipline, primarily in Scotland, but also in schools in the English cities of Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, Manchester and Walsall. A tawse consists of a strip of leather, with one end split into a number of tails. The thickness of the leather and the number of tails is variable. Many Scottish saddlers made tawses for local schoolmasters. The official name "tawse" was hardly ever used in conversation by either teachers or
Corporal punishment of minors in the United States corporal punishment is more harmful for boys than girls. While African-American parents are more likely to favor using corporal punishment, research has shown mixed results on whether physical punishment predicts adverse outcomes in this group. Affluent families at the upper end of the socioeconomic scale tend to spank the least often; middle‑class parents tend to administer corporal punishment in greater numbers, and lower‑class parents tend to do so with still greater frequency. A 2014 real-time investigation of mothers in Texas found that nearly half used some form of corporal punishment during the duration of the study. Subjects tended to use