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Comment by throwaheyy | Hacker News Reader

How much of a factor could lack of school uniforms or dress codes be?

Going from many TV series set in American high school environments, bullying seems to be a major problem, and that bullying seems to be usually rooted in physical appearance.

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I wouldn't believe everything you see on tv. While young men in particular, full of testosterone and out to make their mark on the world, are prone to aggressiveness, when I listen to kids in our community, I talk with teachers, etc, or even just observing kids, bullying isn't anything like a generation or two ago. In my grandparents house hangs a "frat paddle" from the 1920s. You've likely seen movies like "Dazed and Confused." Yes, that kind of hazing was a real thing. There's no way anything like that happens today (at least not in my neighborhood).

Bullying may be topically related to physical appearance[1], but it is rooted in something other than attributes held by the victim. The root of bullying lies within the bully and the environment and systems which create bullies.

To tackle bullying, the ability for a bully to become a bully must be addressed. Anything else is accreting social debt (to draw a parallel to technical debt). If you wish to address social or technical debt, you have to actually address it, not try to patch the effects.

1. Appearance certainly among other things. Children can be bullied for race, culture, class, &c.

I can't find any clear evidence on school uniforms; the reports and data seems to be somewhat mixed. I think it's important to look at the data for these kind of things, as you can make "common sense arguments" that go both ways quite easily.

More importantly, bullying generally affects only a fairly small number of children, and has been around forever; it's not like bullying was invented in the last 15 years. Not that I want to trivialise the effects of bulling in any way, but I'm skeptical it can be the cause of a fairly wide shift in the general population (we're talking about 44% of kids here).

> More importantly, bullying generally affects only a fairly small number of children

That’s a common misconception. Bullying affects everybody, most of all the bystanders and the societal attitudes as the result. If bystanders don’t interfere to prevent bullying they accept it and only wish it doesn’t happen to them. That perpetuates the notion that the strongest, most violent and cruel rule, deeply rooting it in the minds of the growing adolescents and dictating the prevalent mentality of the society 10-20-30 years forward.

I think that is a little bit of a stretch to be honest. My experience is that a lot of bullies kind of "grow out of it". I know, because later became somewhat friendly with some of my former childhood bullies, and some have even apologized on their own initiative, unprompted.

Children, in general, are kind of terrible human beings. Their brains are still developing and they don't quite have the same sense of empathy and compassion that adults do. People's brains continue developing until around the age of 25 or so.

I bullied kids because I was insecure and enjoyed the momentary feelings of power. I was not aware of it at the time; rather, I felt I was a victim of bullying.

I figured out that both were true once I became an adult.

I wore a uniform until highschool. There are still going to be better shoes, newer uniforms while others are worn and ill fitting.

Kids are gonna jerks. But it’s nice not having to decide what to wear

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