Do They Reduce Violence--Or Just Make Us Feel Better?

By Kathleen L. Paliokas and Ray C. Rist

Public school uniforms have become the latest rage in education circles. Parents, teachers, school administrators, and politicians are embracing uniforms as the new policy tool for solving the problem of violence in schools. We hear enthusiastic claims that as a result of uniforms, disciplinary incidents and violence have declined, students' attitudes have improved, and a more serious learning environment has resulted. All these testimonials are confidently communicated, and their sheer abundance is persuasive. But do uniforms, in fact, reduce violence? Or are good intentions and wishful thinking, rather than empirical evidence, driving this policy initiative?

President Clinton has, in the last three months, catapulted the public-school-uniform issue to national prominence by endorsing uniforms in his State of the Union address in January. Subsequently, he again publicly discussed the issue in one of his weekly radio addresses in February and then visited a Long Beach, Calif., school that had instituted a uniform policy.

The president is actively encouraging communities to adopt uniforms and has just asked the U.S. Department of Education to distribute to school districts a new manual offering guidelines for formulating and implementing a uniform policy. In this way, he has not only jumped on the uniform bandwagon but has taken the reins and set it racing...