- Position1 of 2›
- Yes, school uniforms should be mandatory.
School uniforms reduce violence. A recent study conducted by the US Department of Education showed that requiring school uniforms can help accomplish this through reducing the negative effects of peer pressure and bullying that can occur when students come to school wearing designer clothes and expensive shoes.
The argument
The safety case for uniforms rests on three distinct mechanisms, only the first of which concerns how pupils regard one another. When all the children look the same, it fosters an environment of collaboration and unity. It gives the message that "we are all on the same team" and helps to nurture a community spirit, because visible differences in dress mark out who belongs to which group before anyone has spoken, and removing them removes a standing occasion for division. The second mechanism is more direct and concerns what clothing can carry. Uniform requirements reduce the possibility of gang violence by removing gang-affiliated clothing from schools, so the colours and styles that signal membership cannot be displayed or read on school grounds, and the confrontations that follow from such display do not get started. Uniforms also reduce the prominence of weapons in schools, as students cannot conceal a knife or firearm beneath baggy clothes. A fitted, standard garment offers nowhere to hide an object that loose clothing accommodates easily, which turns concealment into a practical obstacle rather than a matter of choosing what to put on that morning. The third mechanism concerns the boundary of the school itself. Uniforms make intruders on the school campus easier to identify, since anyone not wearing a school uniform, or wearing the uniform of a different school, stands out to any member of staff who sees them. Without uniforms, an outsider on the premises has to be recognised as unfamiliar, which depends on staff knowing every pupil by sight; with them, identification is immediate and relies on nobody's memory. Taken together, these three effects are why proponents hold that uniforms in schools make the students safer.
Context
Long Beach school district in California carried out a study across its elementary and middle schools. In 1994, the district became the first school district in the United States to require students to wear school uniforms from Kindergarten to eighth grade. Following the decision, the district found that violence and disciplinary issues across the district fell. There was a 74% reduction in physical fights between students, fewer vandalism cases, and fewer suspensions.
Premises
Counter-arguments
This may be the case in some areas, but in the most violent schools, they most certainly do not make them safer. A study in Texas found that the introduction of school uniforms in the most violent schools caused cases of violence to increase. The same occurred in schools in Miami. What works in some areas, does not work across the board. Also, while they may reduce the number of violent incidents in schools, they only make them worse outside schools. School uniforms make students a target for aggressors from other schools and can exacerbate inter-school conflict and violence. Uniforms only make intruders easier to identify if teachers are subject to a strict dress code as well. Without a teacher uniform, intruders will simply be mistaken for faculty and will gain access to the school and classrooms.
Rejecting the premises
Rejecting P1: They do not make students safer.