School Uniforms - not clear that school uniforms will reduce violence

Humanist, March, 1999 by Julia Wilkins

Helping parents and students resist peer pressure.

This point refers to the pressure to buy expensive name-brand clothing. It is unfortunate that parents are at the mercy of their children's desires, a result of billion-dollar advertising campaigns. The drive to acquire designer-label clothing is a desire imposed by the mass media onto poor inner-city teenagers. Advertisers have long been aware that the culture of consumption has given the underprivileged a way to compensate for feelings of failure in a society that values material wealth.

It should be the role of schools to teach children about the way they are manipulated by the mass media and targeted by advertisers as a susceptible market niche. Perhaps enlightening them about the use of sweatshop laborers in Vietnam who work for fifteen cents an hour in health-hazardous conditions to make $120 Nike sneakers would be enough to deter some students with a conscience.

Parents and students can be taught to resist peer pressure to buy expensive name-brand clothing through education about the true creators of this pressure. Creating a diversion from the true roots of the problem may help politicians but, as long as advertisers continue to use athletic heroes to induce inner-city youth to buy their products, school uniforms can do little to help parents and students.

Helping students concentrate on their school work.

The idea is that if students don't have to think about what they are going to wear to school each day they will be able to focus on learning in school. This notion is simply ludicrous. For many children living in homes where abuse, neglect, and criminal activity are daily occurrences, deciding what to wear is probably the least of their worries. If schools want to solve personal problems in the lives of their students to help them "concentrate on their school work," there are many other issues that should rate higher on the list of priorities than eliminating dress concerns.

Schools are supposed to prepare students for their future roles as adults. Exactly what kind of world are students being prepared to live in--one where no tough decisions ever have to be made and where their hardest choice each day is deciding what to wear?

When students leave school and enter the world of work, they will have to wake up every day and decide what to wear. It's a decision made by every human being in all cultures around the world. Students should not be denied the opportunity to participate in a decision-making process that they will need to use for the rest of their lives. It is a basic skill: deciding what to wear and being able to combine this decision with some other activity, such as school work or paid work. The two are not mutually exclusive, and it is absurd to assume that focus on one will detract attention from the other.

The October 15, 1998, USA Today reports that teachers felt uniforms contributed to higher academic achievement because students were not distracted by the clothes of their classmates. Once again, this is a skill students need to learn in school, as no employer is going to accept that an employee produced inadequate work because they were "distracted" by the clothes of their coworkers.