Southeast : Researcher Praises School Uniforms
Uniforms in fact do make schools safer, according to early data collected for a three-year Cal State Long Beach study to be completed in 1997.
Research by consumer and family sciences professor Sue Stanley shows dramatic downturns in school violence after a little more than a year of mandatory uniforms in the Long Beach Unified School District.
Based on data collected from schools, preliminary results show assaults down 34%, weapons possessions down 50%, fighting reduced by 51%, robbery by 66% and sex offenses by 74%.
“Uniforms are one of several things Long Beach is doing to increase academic excellence and promote safety in the schools,” Stanley said. “But uniforms are the biggest, most visible change, so we feel the uniforms have more impact on the results.”
A survey of school administrators, counselors, teachers, parents and students indicates that uniforms have also brought ethnically and economically diverse students together and lessened their preoccupation with materialism, Stanley said.
Overall, a uniform “promotes good behavior and helps students identify with the purpose of acquiring knowledge,” she said.
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