What are the pros and cons of school uniform? Does it increase student achievement?

Well, it's just clothes, yes? I think the real question is, do they stifle creativity and individuality, do they save parents money, do they keep students from being distracted by flashy fashion, are they just ways for a school district to potentially make some cash? Can you think of other ways a uniform could affect a child? As for whether it increases student achievement, Google something like school uniforms and grades.

They prevent poor students from being picked on for a lack of expensive fashion. It creates unity and helps identity against other schools. It doesnt prevent individualism any more than having all the same chairs or desks in a room. The only thing I know of that increases student achievement is an increase in the quality of the teacher and the resources spent per student.

school uniforms create responsibility.
A student in an easily identifiable school uniform is less likely to perform an anti social act in public because they are easily identifiable.

It makes it simple in the mornings - just get on the uniform.

I think it takes the emphasis off clothes in the classroom, especially in middle school, where kids are so vunerable to how they look or don't look.

That's not what actually happens though, as there are always variants and always ways for social strata to be marked. Maybe shoes, maybe hairstyles, maybe makeup, maybe body type, but there's always something.

That hasnt been my experience with school uniforms. I've found girls try to look neat and fashionable and boys regard it as a duty to look sloppy...I've found social strata goes out he window till it comes to dances, excursions and after school activities. Then the wealth of the parents comes into who socialises with who.

I'm not sure it's evident from the outside. I haven't worn uniforms but I know many people who have, and my stance comes from what they have had to say and also various studies I've seen. I'll see if I can find one.

What I mean by "outside" is that there is communication that happens on a girl-to-girl level that doesn't happen on any other level. (Teachers aren't aware, most boys aren't aware, etc.)

Meanwhile, re: your question, I found this:



http://www.gate.net/~rwms/UniformBrunRock.html

great question. I wonder if the teachers "see" the students better when they are all wrapped generically. As a parent, I think I like not being distracted by attire when I deal with the other kids. It's like I just see their real faces. <shrug>

Also, one's own attire is a self-focussed form of self-expression, unlike most other forms. Anyone have stats on body-image issues related to school uniforms?

As a parent, I sure liked when my daughter wore uniforms - cut out good 10 minutes in the morning of "what should I wear?" and even worse "no, you're
not going like THIS to school!".....

However, while wearing uniforms, some of the kids differentiated themselves from other kids with $ 400.00 backpacks and other equally expensive accessories. Uniforms don't stop showing the different socio-economic backgrounds.

authors found a negative effect of uniforms on student academic achievement

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It all depends on how questions are asked.
A couple of years ago a test in Scandinavia((?) or Germany(?) where we don´t have uniforms was made.
As there were no school uniforms the children in one class were asked to wear the same clothing. I think it was blue jeans, white poloshirts and a darkblue sweater. The class teacher also dressed like this.
It turned out that the kids felt much more as equals, there was less noice in
the classroom and the learning results were better.

Here in the United States it is mostly the private school students who wear
uniforms and their academic achievements are quite reputable.

I wore uniforms from grade 1 - 12. Yes, there are slight variations in shoes, etc., that matter. I, for example, wore the wrong white bucks, back in the fifties. They were probably a dollar cheaper.. and socks mattered. Back then, white socks with angora at the tops were the better ones.

One attribute of some uniforms is that they can unify a class of very different students in mutual hatred of the uniform. Our high school uniforms were hideous polyester yellow, tan, and brown plaid skirts with sort of chartreuse yellow blouses that improved with several hundred washings. It was rare any of us purchased a new one.

I would like to know how negatively affected the academic results were and if there might be another reason for this and how that was eliminated. We in Oz have compulsory school uniforms everywhere. It seems one assumption in the study that wearing a school uniform in one school and not the others is not detrimental by itself. There is also no peer review for the study, or comparison to other studies.
There is the assumption that they have correctly measured poor behaviour by measuring the extreme end...sunstance abuse, expulsion etc. There was no attempt to measure any improved social identification by students who normally felt left out, ie the other end of behaviour.

I thought osso's comment on uniting students in hatred of the uniforms was fun, funny and true.

I wore a uniform from 1 - 12 grade as well. My grade school uniform was a navy jumper and a white, short-sleeved blouse. My mother made a jumper one year that I liked better than the jumper from the uniform company. I remember the fabric as being nicer, the skirt had more of a flare and there were patch pockets on the skirt that I thought were a happy addition.

In high school, we wore a white short sleeved blouse with a pleated wool skirt whose pleats opened to expose stripes of medium sienna and white while the main part of the skirt was a dusky brown. We also wore a chocolate brown blazer.

Shoes were selected by families at both levels and socks or nylons in high school were mandatory.

My parents thought the uniforms were expensive. Our clothes actually came from Sears, Montgomery Wards and S. S. Kresge. With the exception of the jumper she made, my mother bought the jumpers from the uniform company but purchased my blouses from the dime store for $1 each. It was the 1950s!

In those days, dry cleaners did not have 1 hour service or even daily service and our high school did not have a monthly "color day" to allow girls to have their wool uniforms dry cleaned. I developed a rash from mine, so my mother handwashed my skirt every Friday evening. I wore it all four years but wore out the blazer after two.

BTW, most girls changed their white blouses once a week in grade school. We would fight over whether it was better to wear a blouse for three days and change Thursday morning for the last two days . . . or to wear a blouse two days and change on Wednesday morning. This was an annual argument every fall.

I remember the uniforms as expensive too. In my high school years my family catapulted back and forth and back and forth re my father's jobs and our income. Keeping me in that place was a major traumatic deal, as I look back. Harder on a friend who almost didn't graduate because of non paid fees.

Snort. I know I'm older than you are, pom, but these are similar memories.

On the wool, in my freshman year, our then not quite so horrible skirts were wool, a-line, though still ugly plaid. Sophomore year, we were probably the target for worst uniforms in California with the new polyester pleated uglies.

What is becoming more popular in public schools (and some private) in the US is a school dress code rather than a uniform. For example, khaki/polo shirts.