Oh, I agree on both points in general. However, as a parent, in this case I do not want to delegate my “authority” to the school. I and my wife, I think, are better teachers and guides in this particular area for our children in particular than a bunch of administrators who are - even with the best of intentions - trying to write rules that will apply to all.
I am not completely sure you understand what sexism comprises of fully.
Forcing women to cover up is a type of sexism, might I mention a burka? You are actually targeting girls and body-shaming and blaming them for promoting sexual harassment.
I’m female and intimately acquainted with sexism.
And you are ascribing beliefs to me which I don’t have, which I don’t appreciate. I am making a point about the question in this thread, which is whether we support school uniforms.
My remark was that*** if everyone is wearing the same thing***, it can well reduce the issues of interpretation and unfairness that occur with dress codes. Most dress codes are put together by clueless school administrators, updated in response to an “issue” (that’s not an issue), and enforced by zealots who need a new hobby.
A uniform removes all of that.
No problems with sleeveless tops; they aren’t part of the uniform. No problems with board shorts, baseball caps, or short-shorts; they aren’t part of the uniform. No issues with inappropriate messages on t-shirts; not part of the uniform.
It isn’t sexism if everyone is literally wearing the same outfit.
As I’ve said earlier, I have no strong opinion about school uniforms. I wore them myself without any problems. Today, I teach at a pubic high school with very little in the way of dress codes (none that are enforced consistently, anyway).
Thing is, if you looked first at the kids in my old Catholic school and then at the seniors in the high school where I now teach, you’d say “All the girls at the first school are dressed identically, and all the kids at the second school are dressed identically too.”
Even though I teach at an affluent, mostly white school, there are no “Heathers” or “Mean Girls” wearing fancy designer dresses to show up poorer girls. ALL the girls at my old Catholic school wore the same jumpers, while ALL the girls at my current school wear the same t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops.
Do I really care whether my current school ever adopts uniforms? No, not really. But if your concern is that some girls will embarrass the others by wearing showy, flashy, expensive threads, fear not. Rich girls here dress every bit as sloppily as lower middle-class girls.
I agree wholeheartedly with school uniforms BUT (at least here in Australia) they are ridiculously expensive compared to regular clothes.
Ordinary polo-shirts and zipped fleecy jackets of a particular colour are pretty much the norm for government primary schools (along with shorts/pants) but the school logo is added to the tops and the price goes from an average of $10-$15 (at the likes of Target) to $25-$35. And of course kids are growing like crazy during the early years, so the uniform often needs replacing twice or even 3 x during the school year.
Secondary schools are even more expensive, with simple cotton dresses costing the earth, and mandatory school blazers often upward of $200.
And the uniform manufacturers have a total monopoly of course, so can charge whatever they like.
For those who had to wear uniforms – did you ever have “jeans days” or “dress-up days”? We’d have one or the other about once a month when I was in school.
It’s ridiculous that the school doesn’t just supply the logo badge for parent (or child) to affix themselves to a suitable top.
And regular clothes wouldn’t?
Twice a year for us, 30 years ago. Around once a month for my daughter nowadays. They’re called “Civvies day” here.
The folks I know whose kids wear a uniform do a nice trade-n-sell of gently-used uniforms.
The choice usually isn’t between no clothes, and expensive uniforms, but rather between relatively generic and inexpensive uniform items, or regular clothes, which may be the center of a lot of angst for the kid, and expense for the parents, if the kids have it in their heads that some things are cool, and others are deeply uncool.
It’s not at all uncommon to see the local school uniform items presented front and center at local discount stores (Wal-Mart, Target, Academy) at inexpensive prices.
Sure, you could go and buy your kid Gap khakis and LL Bean polos in all the right colors, but you could also go get them the Wal-Mart versions if that’s what your budget can handle.
And if your kids are in some kind of snitty competition about wearing “cool” clothes, then having uniforms kicks that squarely in the ass as far as school clothes are concerned.
Do you mean the uniform pieces themselves cost more than regular clothes? I can agree that that is sometimes true- especially with true uniforms rather than a restrictive dress code. But during the years my kids wore uniforms, my overall costs were much lower for the uniforms than the larger wardrobe that would have been required if they wore regular clothes every day, all year round. My son generally needed one pair of uniform pants per year, and my daughter’s jumper/skirts usually lasted at least two years. I never bought more than one pair of pants or skirt in a year due to growing kids- sure they grew, but that’s what deep hems and elastic at the waist are for. I didn’t always have to buy them as they were good enough quality that we got hand-me downs from larger friends and a cousin. They needed maybe five shirts each a year (and only because they were so close in age/size that hand-me-downs between the two of them didn’t work). A pair of shoes each and some socks. I’m going to guess that I spent maybe an average of $300 on uniforms per year between the two kids.
If they had worn regular clothes to school, I couldn't have gotten away with buying one extra pair of pants and five extra shirts in addition to their existing weekend/afterschool wardrobes. And while I don't know for sure how much that would have cost, I know I generally spent $200/year for each of them for summer clothes when they were around kindergarten age. That was clothing for just one season, and it got more expensive as they got older.
Just as a comparison, a single pair of trousers of my older daughter’s school uniform costs $60 - I wouldn’t normally spend more than $10. The entire kit, including three shirts, two pairs of trousers, two summer dresses, jumper, jacket, sports uniform, school shoes, and branded schoolbag, would be pushing $700, which is about five times more than I’d usually spend on her clothes for a year. Friends with kids in private schools were easily making it to $1000 for an initial uniform set
Admittedly I pushed the price down a little by going second hand as much as possible, and my bill this year will be a lot less, but I can’t say it brings down the general clothes budget any, since she still does wear clothes in the holidays and on weekends!
I went to a high school with uniforms.
It was a waste of time and effort and a cash grab for the one provider.
My kids attend a public school in California with a strict dress code. The approved items (for boys) are a white or navy blue polo or long sleeve shirt and navy or khaki shorts/pants. Of course, parents are able to obtain a waiver but most kids just wear the uniform.
I am strongly in favor. I was very self-conscious as a kid and this would have taken away one more thing to be self-conscious about.
Just a lesson from my own experience: freedom is relative. Always.
After 8 years wearing blazers and ties and black Oxfords, my Jesuit high school classmates and I were given a new, laxer dress code:
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We had to wear a shirt with a collar. Basically, that meant no t-shirts or basketball shirts. But polo shirts, turtlenecks, flannel shirts, denim shirts, almost anything else was okay.
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No sneakers and no open toed shoes. But almost any other kind of casual shoes was okay.
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No shorts. Any other kind of pants was okay, provided they were clean.
So, MOST of us came to school every day for 4 years in a “uniform” of sorts: polo shirts, jeans and deck shoes.
To US, that seemed like absolute freedom!
But if the school I teach at now tried to impose that same dress code, kids here would scream bloody murder, and act as if the Third Reich had just returned.
It’s all relative.
These two statements conflict with each other.
If the kids are in a snitty competition about clothes, uniforms will not kick that in the ass - it will just move it to “who buys stuff at Wal-Mart v. who got their uniform at the Gap v. who got theirs fitted and tailored at Neiman Marcus” and (in my experience) it will be just as loaded and just as brutal as it is when students are allowed to wear whatever they want. School uniforms do nothing for that problem.
However, if they’re trying to solve the problem of “what is appropriate clothing for school” then a uniform makes it very easy to decide whether someone is wearing the right outfit.
No jeans day or dress-up days for us in my English grammar school of the 50s/60s. The headmaster would have had apoplexy at the very thought. The grammar schools of that era were modeled on public (US private) schools such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby. We pupils would have loved the idea had it ever entered our heads as something imaginable.
As I said above, I’ve changed my mind as an adult and I do believe uniforms have their uses. But I certainly hear you about the cash grab by one provider. We had precisely the same problem in the city I was in. With a population of some quarter-million only one shop was authorized to provide the uniform and it seized the welcome opportunity of gouging the parents out of as much money as it could get away with. My parents were not poor but neither were they well-off and everything had to be budgeted for. Even at the age of 11 I could see the financial strain the purchase placed on the household. It was a valuable early lesson for me on the evils of monopolies.
Given the correlation between negative academic and mental health
issues, can anyone provide motivation for these efforts outside of trying to force a white, male, heteronormative, middle class, and professional social norm and bias?
“School uniforms do not improve attendance, academic preparedness, or exam results” David L. Brunsma, The School Uniform Movement and What It Tells Us about American Education: A Symbolic Crusade, 2004
“Overall, there is no evidence in bullying literature that supports a reduction in violence due to school uniforms.” - Shawn Jeffords, “Uniforms Won’t Stop School Bullies, Experts Say,” stcatharinestandard.ca, Mar. 14, 2012
“School uniforms emphasize the socio-economic divisions they are supposed to eliminate.” US Department of Education and Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2013,” nces.ed.gov, June 2014
“Uniforms may have a detrimental effect on students’ self-image.” - Lisa Flam, “Are School Uniforms Helping or Hindering?,” today.com, Aug. 19, 2013"
“Focusing on uniforms takes attention away from finding genuine solutions to problems in education.” - Linda Starr, “Can Uniforms Save Our Schools?,” educationworld.com, May 11, 1998
“School uniforms in public schools undermine the promise of a free education by imposing an extra expense on families.” - Glori Chaika, “School Uniforms: Panacea or Band-Aid?,” educationworld.com, Oct. 11, 1999
As an aside: My high school didn’t have a uniform, but did have a strict dress code (including ties). There was still competition over clothes, but it was mostly centered around who was wearing the ugliest or otherwise most outrageous necktie. I don’t think anyone was traumatized by it.
When you are poor you often don’t have the option to buy new clothes at all. There is a significant portion of the population that actually wears hand-me-downs or donated clothes.
While it appears that you were lucky enough in life to be born to a family with more means you have to realize that there is a significant percentage of the population that are not nearly as lucky.
The concern is not with families that can actually worry about fashion, but with those who have to decide on what core needs to sacrifice in order to placate the the desires of families with disposable income to enforce some arbitrary social norms that doesn’t have much to do with the academic mission of the schools.
I have a lot of objections to the idea of uniforms but I do think that there are some points in its favor, namely—
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Limiting clothing expenses for poor families
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Limiting fashion-based competition between poor and rich students.