Uniforms are a weapon deployed to suppress the poor

The argument

It is no coincidence that the schools in the lowest income areas adopt school uniform policies more often than those in wealthy areas. A 2016 study from the National Center for Education Statistics in the US found that 40% of schools where three-quarters of the student body were eligible for free school meals had mandatory uniform policies. By contrast, just 4% of schools where a quarter or less of the student body received free school meals had implemented school uniform policies. The distance between those two figures is what the argument rests on. If uniforms were adopted because they improve learning, discipline or belonging, there would be no reason for the benefit to be concentrated almost entirely in the poorest schools; a tenfold difference in adoption tracks the income of the intake rather than any educational rationale. The policy is therefore better understood by asking what distinguishes those schools from wealthier ones, which is not their students' need for order but the way poverty is governed inside institutions that serve poor communities. Seen that way, the uniform belongs to a recognisable set of measures. School uniforms, alongside metal detectors, police sniffer dogs, surveillance cameras and locker searches, are another way to criminalize and oppress poverty and the poor. Each of those measures treats the student body as a population to be monitored and contained rather than taught, and each is imposed overwhelmingly on children who are already poor. The uniform performs the same function in a quieter register: it standardises appearance, removes the individual's control over how they present themselves, and makes any deviation immediately visible and punishable, which are the conditions of supervision rather than of education. They are another weapon of control and should be viewed as merely a weapon in the fight to suppress the poor and powerless.

Context

School uniforms are a tool to implement a broader policy of surveillance and control over the poorest and least powerful elements of society.

Premises

Counter-arguments

School uniforms are not a weapon to suppress the poor. They are implemented to protect them. The reason they are implemented in low-income schools is to prevent the singling out of poor students and reduce bullying. In areas with extreme poverty, the students who cannot afford nice clothes, or rely on hand-me-downs, could be targeted by bullies. The introduction of school uniforms benefits schools in low-income areas more by making children safer and reducing bullying. They are also a good way of improving classroom behaviour by removing distractions and reinforcing the teacher/student hierarchy. In lower economic areas, classroom discipline is often a recurring issue. Adopting a mandatory school uniform policy is helping to improve student behaviour in these schools. There is not a malignant campaign to subvert and suppress the lower echelons of society. School uniforms are simply being deployed in an effort to make our schools safer and improve classroom behaviour, which would have better learning outcomes for all.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] They are not designed to repress the poor, they are implemented to help keep them safe.