Students can potentially be identified as members of a lower socioeconomic status based upon the clothing that they possess. This can lead to peer pressure from students who have more expensive clothing towards those who come from more economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This gap can make it difficult for some students to fit in to a school's social environment. Those students who have trouble fitting in are at a higher risk of having behavioral and academic issues.
School uniforms promote a professional approach to schooling by separating the clothes for play from those used for learning. School uniforms can curtail peer pressure by promoting a more positive, polished and professional outlook on school life. This increased school pride may reduce behavioral issues and increase individual students' resistance to peer pressure.
Peer pressure can lead students to act out in a variety of ways, including fights, behavioral issues, and substance abuse. Evidence from the Long Beach Unified School District in California suggests that school uniforms remove this pressure and cause a subsequent drop in behavioral problems. A September 1999 study in "Psychology Today" showed a 91 percent reduction in crime, a 90 percent reduction in suspensions, a 70 percent reduction in drug abuse, and a 54 percent reduction in fights within the first years of a school uniform policy being adopted.
By instituting a school uniform policy, schools remove one of the most visible ways in which the economic variations of the student body can be seen. Students and their families no longer have to worry about how they appear to other students because everyone is wearing the same thing. By removing this external measure of self-worth, students can refocus their ideas of self-worth on things that have less to do with their familial circumstances, like academic achievement, character and athletic prowess.
Parents want their children to be accepted in the children's school environment. If a certain kind of clothing is part of this, parents may be pressured by their peer group to spend money that they do not have to match the standard of living common within the school. School uniforms remove this pressure from families and allow them to keep money they cannot afford to spend on the latest trends.