School uniforms - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... Despite this, it is important to explain to the stakeholders in the education sector, the benefits of such a policy, in order to change their perceptions thereby ensuring compliance. This paper is a critical evaluation of the importance of wearing school uniforms in US schools. School Uniforms All American schools should make the wearing of uniforms a mandatory requirement. To begin with, uniforms are important in that they enhance uniformity thereby relieving the students of distractions created by social and economic inequalities in the family context. The student society is rich with diversity; there are those who hail from wealthy families and others who come from poor families. In this context, it may be observed that without school uniforms, those students from wealthy families will come to school wearing expensive clothing items because they can afford whereas, those from poor families will come to school wearing cheap clothing thereby making it possible to identify them among the crowds. This creates distractions as the poor students will always feel as if they are inferior regardless of their intellectual abilities. In such an environment, noting that birds of the same feather flock together, the student society would be highly disintegrated such that rich students will tend to seclude the poor ones, for example while socializing and conducting extracurricular activities. This has the capacity to affect such students psychologically thereby reducing their ability to excel academically (Brunsma 46). However, school uniforms create a feeling of equality, which is important in promoting teamwork important for academic excellence. Similarly, it is observable that without school uniforms, students tend to put much of their attention on the type of clothing they will wear to school. The need to look beautiful is understandable, but trends in fashion keep on changing and this creates an unnecessary problem for parents, who are constantly required to update their children’s wardrobes so as to fulfill their desires. With the current economic hardships being experienced in every part of the globe, these parents ought to support the wearing of uniforms as a measure to cut down expenses. This is possible because children will have no alternative but to wear uniforms, which are identical therefore, eliminating the need to incur such unnecessary expenditure (Jill 33). In addition, school uniforms enhance class attendance among students, which in turn promotes academic excellence. In this context, students wearing civilian clothing are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior outside the school compound during class hours (Jill 52). This is due to the fact that it makes it difficult for anyone to distinguish them among the multitudes of people in the streets. A parent may think that his son is in school but on the contrary, the son may be on the streets engaging in activities such as drug peddling, drug and substance abuse or even gang related violence. On the other hand, such a student may be easy to notice if he is wearing a uniform and even if no immediate action would be taken, the school can be notified so as to take necessary measures to identify the students and probably ...Download file to see next pagesRead More