School Uniforms Conformity

Levi Monahemi

Mr. Griffin

SATIS Cluster D

23 December 2016

Should students have to wear school uniforms? Although administrators presume that school uniforms present an overall merit to the educational establishment, school uniforms are unavailing and have an erroneous presence to the institution. The preconceived aspirations regarding school uniforms are fallacious, resulting in the encouragement of conformity rather than individuality. Also, students are not fond of uniforms. Administering uniforms could have a detrimental outcome on a student's perception of their own self- image. Some may argue that school uniforms diminish bullying, although they do not; in some instances, uniforms can untimely result in a segregation between students

Some students, although granted the ability to differ and express themselves in many ways, are not permitted to dress how they please. According to the United States Department of Education, twenty three percent of all schools, public and private, enforce some sort of dress code policy. [B]. Without the ability to express oneself, students are deprived of the opportunity demonstrate individuality.

Conformity. As a society, do individuals seek to promote conformity? According to Troy Shuman, a Maryland senior, school uniforms serve a dual purpose; not only are uniforms encouraging conformity, but they are also “squelching individual thought,” which should not be tampered with Shuman then goes on to compare two completely different establishments, school and jail. Like prisoners, students must wear a uniform. If “the ultimate socializer to crush rebellion is conformity in appearance,” then where does it end?

Those people believe that uniforms are good because they eliminate the competition between students over clothing choices, although they are wrong. When other students wear less fashionable, less expensive, and sometime the same clothing everyday, it can expose a lot more than one thinks. For example, if a student were to wear the same dirty, ripped pair of pants to school everyday, that may demonstrate the lack of funds that that child's family has- demonstrating socioeconomic differences between peers. As upsetting as this sounds, some students tend to pick on and bully those other students. The obvious solution to solve this heartbreaking situation would be to administer a uniform, although that may not have such a positive outcome. The bully, needing someone to blame for the new uniform, directs the blame to the lower class student- resulting in even more bullying. When the socioeconomic class distinctions of a school, a community, are exposed and those who are at the bottom of the chain get picked