Terwijl iedereen bezig is om te (her)onderzoeken of jongens en meisjes wel samen in de klas mogen zitten, even een onderzoek van de University of Houston waaruit blijkt dat schooluniformen een positief effect hebben op de aanwezigheid van de leerlingen én het behouden van leerkrachten. Maar even belangrijk: de punten stijgen er niet door. Voor de data keken de onderzoekers naar de effecten die school uniformen hadden in groot stedelijk school district in het Zuidwesten van de VS.

Dit is het abstract van het onderzoek:

Uniform use in public schools is rising, but we know little about how they affect students. Using a unique dataset from a large urban school district in the southwest United States, we assess how uniforms affect behavior, achievement and other outcomes. Each school in the district determines adoption independently, providing variation over schools and time. By including student and school fixed-effects we find evidence that uniform adoption improves attendance in secondary grades, while in elementary schools they generate large increases in teacher retention.

Verder vonden ze:

[U]niforms have a positive influence on student attendance in secondary grades. Attendance rates in grades 6 through 12 increase by 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points after a school adopts uniforms. On the other hand, we find little evidence that uniforms have lasting impacts on achievement, grade retention, or the likelihood of students switching schools or leaving the district for all genders and grade levels.