¶ … School Uniforms Beneficial?
The topic of whether or not school uniforms are beneficial is timely, since nowadays more and more public schools are opting for such uniforms, in lieu of allowing students to select school wardrobes. Administrators, teachers, parents, and even other students often believe that students in schools that do not require uniforms spend excessive time and energy focusing on their own, and each others', wardrobes, and not focusing enough on becoming educated. The topic is interesting because it calls into question students' freedom of choice, and the freedom of expression wardrobe selection arguably gives them, versus students' responsibility to take school seriously and to learn as much as possible while there. The topic is significant to the field of instruction because it bears on the possibility that students' not wearing school uniforms interferes with teaching and learning; and with classroom attitudes and atmospheres....
It also bears on such matters as peer pressure, materialism, and social class, all of which may arguably influence students' learning readiness, attitudes about themselves, vis-a-vis their peers, and attitudes about school and learning in general. The topic does not bear on either instructional design or instructional technology, however, in any ways I can think of, except possibly in the sense of implicit pressure on teachers to make learning materials "newer," flashier, more technologically innovative, or in other ways more exciting, in order to hope to compete with students' fascination with appearances, fashion, and material possessions.
Since evidence that uniforms matter (or do not) is (as far as I know) purely anecdotal, a qualitative approach to researching this topic might work best. For example, if a particular school district, group of districts, or even an individual school wished to gather information on whether or not…
