School uniforms and student behavior: is there a link?

•We examine elementary-aged students’ social-behavioral and engagement outcomes as a function of school uniform policies.•Students in schools that required school uniforms did not demonstrate better social behavior or school attendance than students in schools without school uniforms.•Associations were true across both public and private schools, but low-income students in schools with school uniforms demonstrated better school attendance. Whether or not schoolchildren exhibit better behavior in the context of wearing uniforms has been a longstanding area of debate in education. Nonetheless, there has been little empirical inquiry into the benefits or drawbacks of school uniform policies. To contribute new insights to the dialog, the present investigation used nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2011 (n = 6,320) to examine students’ social-behavioral and engagement outcomes across the elementary school years as a function of school uniform policies. In general, students in schools that required school uniforms did not demonstrate better social skills, internalizing and externalizing behavior, or school attendance as compared with students in schools without school uniforms. These associations were true across both public and private schools. There was, however, some indication that low-income students in schools that required uniforms demonstrated better school attendance than low-income students in schools that did not.