- Position1 of 2›
- Yes, school uniforms should be mandatory.
When students all look the same but teachers look different, a sense of hierarchy is achieved that instils discipline.
The argument
The argument is about what a uniform communicates rather than what it costs or conceals. Requiring students to wear the same clothes to school makes the clothing itself a signal, and the signal does work in the classroom. The first effect is contextual. A uniform serves as a constant reminder that the student is not at home and that there are behavioural expectations they are required to meet. Ordinary clothes carry no such message: a pupil dressed as they would be at the weekend is wearing something belonging to the unstructured part of their life, and the setting then has to supply the sense of occasion unaided. Changing into a uniform marks a transition into a place with rules, and it keeps marking it all day. Proponents argue this leads to better classroom behaviour simply because the reminder never lapses. The second effect is the one the argument names directly, and it is presented as a benefit rather than an objection. A hierarchy is clearly established: students are required to wear a school uniform, while teachers wear different clothes. That asymmetry is a visual demarcation of authority, legible to a child without anything having to be said. It indicates at a glance which people in the building are in a position to give instructions and which are in a position to receive them. What the demarcation does over time is internalise the structure. A hierarchy that has to be asserted verbally is contested each time it is asserted; one built into what everyone is wearing is simply the shape of the environment, and pupils come to operate within it as a matter of course. On this account that is how discipline is instilled — not through enforcement but through an arrangement in which the ordering of authority is continuously and silently visible. So the uniform's stratifying effect is precisely the case for it: it makes school a place whose expectations and whose authority structure are both constantly apparent.
Context
When uniforms are mandatory, children behave better in class. This is likely due to the creation of a sense of hierarchy which reinforces discipline.
Premises
Counter-arguments
By this logic, schools in the United Kingdom, where almost every school has a mandatory uniform policy, should have markedly improved classroom discipline than schools in the United States, where the majority of public school students are not forced to wear a uniform. But this is not the case. In a study published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, the US and the UK showed similar levels of classroom discipline, indicating that the existence of a mandatory school uniform policy had no effect on discipline and did little to reinforce a classroom hierarchy.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P2] Stats do not indicate any improvement in behaviour.