@Bungibill
I remember that about Sweden too. I'm from the UK and in the late 70's UK it was normal to whack your kids in or out of jw's. But not with belts or sticks or in a frenzied way.
But ... some context.
In the UK in my Infants' and Junior school (ages 5 - 7 and 7 - 11) in the 1960's and early 70's female teachers would make you roll up your sleeve and slap you on the underside of your forearm or on the hand with their hand. Usually only once. (As in one slap at a time)
In the Junior School a 12" ruler might be used if you were particularly "naughty". Say theft or beating up a fellow pupil.
In my senior school (ages 11-16) in the 1970's the girls never got corporal punishment but the boys might get the "gym-shoe" from one of the games teachers which was like getting a slipper across your backside one, two or three times.
If you were really bad (like lashing out at a teacher or constantly swearing at a teacher) then the headmaster might use the cane. Only once did I hear of this when a 15 year old boy in my class from a disadvantaged background swore at and hit a female teacher. We all knew when he was going to get "six of the best" after assembly but in private and then he was expelled.
But corporal punishment in UK state schools was dying out by then and in 1987 it was forbidden in state run schools and in 1999 in private (strangely called public schools) schools.
A case was brought before the European Court of Human rights in 1993 and they ruled that giving a seven year old "three whacks with a gym-shoe over his trousers was not a forbidden degrading punishment"