The facts of the matter are that school uniforms do not do what they are supposed to do.
This is not the fault of school uniforms. Bits of cloth. It is the fault of those who ‘suppose’ things they’ll do.
They suppose wrong.
Apparently, according to some of the study authors I have read, there simply have not been many studies.
This doesn’t mean there haven’t been many pronouncements.
There have, no doubt, been many pronouncements. Irresponsible, misleading, unprofessional announcements.
But to stick to the science, the known, the demonstrable, the proven we find few studies.
Amongst those there are probably the most respected and most thorough is that by David L. Brunsma from the University of Alabama and Kerry A. Rockquemore of Notre Dame.
This study found, in conclusion:
Based upon this analysis, the authors were forced to reject the ideas that uniforms improved attendance rates, decreased behavioral problems, decreased drug use, or improved academic achievement. The authors did find that proschool attitudes from students and their peers and good academic preparedness did predict the desired behavior. They saw that wearing uniforms did not lead to improvements in proschool attitudes or increased academic preparation.
Link to Brunsma and Rockquemore Study.
What does this mean? Read it. Think. It means uniforms will not do the students – your children, my children, our children – any good and they won’t do the school any good.
DESPITE what is claimed by those who should know of this study and who should only claim truthful things.
And this study fails entirely to study the effects upon the family of pressuring students into uniforms. Everything from emotional upset to financial strain.
And it fails entirely to study the ongoing effects in later life of being subjected to this kind of treatment at school.
All of that is true. This is overwhelming evidence and there is more to be found.
So it proves conclusively that the uniforms are useless and therefore bad, but look again, it also suggests what is good. GOOD. The direction that WILL achieve what these uniform lovers claim to want to achieve.
For what did the authors conclude:
The authors did find that proschool attitudes from students and their peers and good academic preparedness did predict the desired behavior.
The authors found that if students and their peers were PRO-SCHOOL, in favour of school, liked their school, wanted to go to the school – then this predicted the ‘desired behaviour’.
Stands to reason, doesn’t it? But how many want to see reason?
And the authors also found that:
They saw that wearing uniforms did not lead to improvements in proschool attitudes or increased academic preparation.
Wearing uniforms didn’t help a bit. Not even in changing this “predictor” attitude.
So the lesson is clear. The way is clear. Get the students and their peers (and their parents and their friends and their school teachers and administrators) to LIKE the school. Give them something to LIKE. Teach them to love it. Increase the happiness quotient.
Stop being heavy draconian administrators and punishers determined to flatten all your children into humbly acquiescing shapeless blobs of the same colour – and become living human beings with some love and some liking and demonstrate that to the children. Show them the way.
You will, willy-nilly, show them ‘the way’. For what they see at the school is what they will believe is the nature of their society.
That’s the problem.
There is one case that is frequently quoted by the lovers of uniforms……
(and note this: they are lovers of uniforms – they are NOT lovers of education, lovers of children, lovers of schooling, lovers of family, home, country or whatever – they simply love uniforms and in the absence of clear, convincing evidence of the beneficial effects of uniforms they Push Mightily For Them Anyway!
Thereby giving away their true love, their true motivation, their true heart and soul.
They, of course, educators, public officials, whatever, should NOT do this. But they do and you/we let them get away with it.)
…. and that one case is the case of Palm Beach. A famous case. It seemed to indicate a clear win for school uniforms, changed that school immensely, dramatically, apparently. Impressed President Clinton to such an extend that he broadcast publicly in favour of school uniforms.
There’s a couple of facts need to be stated about that case:
. Palm Beach schools were more or less living hells of gang violence in a way we simply wouldn’t believe here in the rest of the world. To simply stop a nightmare of swaggering gangs of knife and gun carrying juvenile delinquents running the school and its grounds was a ‘dramatic change’.
That is to say, bringing those schools halfway towards what we’ve already got would be, was, a ‘dramatic change’.
. At this same time (of course) there were many, many other things happened at that school (or those schools) directed towards improving the situation – they had people patrolling the corridors of the schools for instance, it was dramatic.
It is obvious now, to all later reviewers of this case, that the data was not reasonably reported. Just paying attention to the problem, showing willingness to deal with it, bringing in people to enforce rules and guarantee safety, showing the ‘good kids’ that the staff and the school were on their side – all of these measures and more were more than enough to ensure a dramatic and radical change in any case.
To say the school changed because someone said : ‘wear uniforms’ is a joke type interpretation of the situation. Unfortunately Presidents – or politicians generally – are briefed hurriedly and are not famous for scientific deliberation or analysis of situations… are they?
. Latterly the situation has turned around and started to go downhill…. as the ‘extra effects’ wear off or are diminished in size and/or scope the uniforms remain and are powerless of themselves to do anything…….
And, to end, of course all of this exists within the context of the family, the home, the wider society.
Forcible imposition of a mode of dress brings all kinds of hardships and wrongs with it inevitably. Inevitably. ‘Forcible’ and ‘Imposition’ are wrongs in themselves. In an educational context they become more wrong. In a Junior educational context they become worse.
It would take great proven ‘rights’ to ever offset these wrongs. None such have ever been shown. Ever.