this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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Uniforms are not exactly a conservative idea. You could argue that it is a return to tradition, but uniforms are functionally more progressive if anything.
I have been to, no joke, over a dozen schools in several countries, some with uniforms and some without, and I find uniforms to be a far better option. Yes, uniforms aren't cheap and you don't get to pick what to wear, but I here are some reasons why it is still very worth it:
Ive also been to school in countries with and without and I find that absolutely none of the good things people attribute to school uniforms are true.
There is absolutely no merit for school uniform. They're exhausting to deal with. They kill your self expression which is important for teenagers especially. Often schools take it too far and try to send the pupils back into the 17th century. My sister wasnt allowed to wear make up. If you were seen with make up there were wet wipes at the front of every classroom so the whole class could see you wipe off your makeup. School uniform socks are just a greedy money making scheme.
And most importantly, they dont do anything against bullying. Kids dont bully each other for clothes because they actually mind the clothes. They bully because they want to bully. There will always be something. And there are better ways to work against that than forcing all children to buy a second wardrobe and suffocate anyone who is trying to express themselves in an unconvential way.
I think you are making a blanket statement about uniform systems and attributing all the bad things from a few to all of them. Uniform systems come in many varieties including gendered/ungendered, seasonal, school supplied/outsourced/local distributors, half uniforms (assigned shirt with unassigned but color coded pants), optional outerwear, regulations on haircut/makeup/accessories, and more.
Bullying absolutely happens to people who are not as well dressed, particularly people who have to wear the same days several days in a row in the absence of a uniform code. It may not have happened to you, but that doesn't mean it hasn't for others. I would know because I spent a good 5 years living on just two suitcases drifting from home to home, and my limited and undersized wardrobe was often a point of ridicule.
Saying "there will always be something to bully" as a counterpoint to how bullies will always find something to bully is pretty dismissive to how much it hurts to be bullied for one's appearances. If you think that what you wear makes no difference to bullies, try wearing a clownsuit to school everyday. It's like you're saying "bullies will bully you anyway, so why not give them one more thing to bully you about?"
I get that being bullied for your clothes may not look a big deal to you because you're a grown adult. But that's not how many teenage minds work. Small things like that can be detrimental to their self esteem.
I already touched on this and said that the best ones are the ones that give you the most freedoms. The very most freedom is had without any uniforms at all.
How did this look when you moved somewhere with uniforms? You probably had to buy new uniforms and you would be able to give them away when you moved away again. That money could have been put towards buying something newer and nicer for yourself instead.
The problem is that one's appearance isn't just the clothes you wear. How much does it hurt to get bullied for facial features, hair, skin colour, accent, pimples, issues possibly related to a disability? Bullies can also just pick any part of your body and make fun of that because most people dont have a perfect body. Everyone has something that is not perfectly adherring to body standards.
I just don't see any reason to believe that uniforms would make it more "difficult" to bully in any way. Bullies don't blanket bully everyone who wears X or does Y. They are predatory and choose specific type of person to bully and then just fling everything at them and see to what that person reacts.
I totally understand that. But the only time I, personally, ever saw someone get bullied for their clothes was when that person was wearing uniform that was in clearly poor condition because that kid had it really rough at home. On the other hand, I've noticed people attempting to bully me for traits of my personality. They weren't satisfied with my reaction so they went on to bully someone else instead but the point still stands. Could school uniform have protected me from that? Does school uniform make me less nerdy?
I'm sorry you had to go through all of that growing up and I hope you're over it now. I just feel like you're giving school uniform too much credit.
I'm giving school uniforms the appropriate amount of credit based on my own experiences with it. Like I said, not every school I went to required one, so I didn't have to change uniforms every time. For the schools that did, I often bought mine discounted or second hand, and still I've yet to be bullied about my clothing compared to when I only had my dilapidated wardrobe that made me stick out like a sore thumb in schools without uniforms.
You say you 'totally understand' in one breath, and then tell me in another how you've only seen it once which means that uniforms cleaely don't matter. Have you ever been a school that wears uniforms before? I feel that we live in two different worlds here and I'm not so sure that you see the big picture.
I've been the new student more times than I've wanted to, and there were a myriad of things to be bullied about each time. I've been consistently bullied less often in schools that have a uniform, regardless of the topic. This is particularly true among American schools, which often did not have a uniform. The one that did (a public charter school), had far fewer bullies. You could argue that this is correlation and not causation, but that's hard to believe when I've been repeated bullied for my clothing. The only additional 'individuality' I've seen in these people is the unearned confidence to say what ever they'd like about other people with no qualms about their feelings.
For the vast majority of the world, uniforms are the norm and even mandatory in many countries. Ironically, most school systems allowed me to choose my own backpack and only US public schools require specifically transparent backpacks due to mass shootings. It's just wild the things this country would sacrifice in the name of individual freedom.
Uniforms aren't the infringement on individuality people think they are. If it were true, most people in the world would have no individuality because they have uniforms. There is a reason why schools, hospitals, soldiers, and prisons have uniforms and it's not just to look good, it's to legitimize an institution and instill discipline. Schools with poor discipline is where rampant behaviorial issues develop. When schools are already understaffed and underfunded, the lack of a uniform makes it even harder to keep students in line. When students wear uniforms, their individuality stops being just about how they look and starts being about how they want to be perceived by others through their actions.
I've been to both school with and without uniforms. As I said, I only witnessed bullying based on clothing in the schools with uniforms.
I still don't understand why money put towards uniform could not have been put towards better leisure clothing.
I neither believe that school uniforms create more bullies, nor do I believe that all schools with uniforms are bad. I think that uniforms are a huge waste of time and money that makes many children miserable - of course some will also like it, as you have made quite clear.
Whether uniforms are normal or not really depends on the local culture so there could be any number of things at play of why there was less bullying or why you may have felt more comfortable in general. Attributing everything to uniforms sounds reductive.
The vast majority of countries also still use corporal punishment. I don't value their opinions on education.
Do doctors and nurses need to be taught discipline? Prisons use the lack of individuality as part of a punishment. Wearing something stupid is supposed to make you unhappy. For military this is true though but these are adults who know what they are getting themselves into. These aren't angsty teenagers trying to find out who they are and instead being forced to wear things they hate.
In the school where I had to wear a uniform there were quite a lot of children from socioeconomically disadvantaged homes. There were quite a lot of kids who acted out and made life difficult for teachers and other students. There was far less of this in the schools without uniforms. It's a socioeconomic thing. Uniforms don't change that.
Like I said, this was something I've observed across public schools without and without uniforms, and they were of similar socioeconomic backgrounds.
I think we are going in circles here. You seem to be adamant in your stance of "I didn't see the bullying and therefore it wasn't a problem". I can't convince you that a problem exists if this stance overrides any evidence presented to you.
The best I can do is make my point and hope that someone else can empathize with it. Have a nice day.
I can say that in my case in New Zealand, there was one store to buy the uniforms and shoes with no exception. Everyone was equal and had the same set of clothes to wear, the only exception is that the boys wore grey and green and the girls had the option of white. The uniforms are still the same decades later.
In Melbourne, Australia there were stores like that in pretty much every shopping center and they would just have all the usual colours and you would buy the ones your school wanted you to.
They would have different fabrics at different price points. We all looked the same from afar but there were differences up close.
I find it interesting that there weren't any sets with the school logo at your school. My school used these to raise a bit of money and would buy them back and sell them second-hand as well when you were done.
Most Australian schools do not have different materials for uniforms. They arrange with a couple of very specific providers to make official uniforms with exact same materials and quality standards. Saying otherwise shows you don't know what you're on about.
They include the logo on most of their stuff including tops and bottoms specifically so that other companies cannot rip off their uniforms and sell inferior products. It's so controlled it's basically a racket in Australia.
Then your schools are doing it wrong. Uniforms also typically come with a dress code that forbids excessive jewellery or accessories and they also mandate particular providers and exact material and specifications for the uniforms so there is no variation in material or other qualities.
Most of your points are just based on feelings and anecdotal experience that have no basis in reality when uniforms are properly implemented.
Thank you. Well said! I usually feel like the lone voice of reason against people who roll out the usual bullshit about uniforms.
Total tosh. Those are the dogmatic points people have been rolling out for years without any basis in fact. The "great leveler" theory was useful post War when the differences were obvious, but they are largely irrelevant today.
The "Sense of community" is always translated by kids as "forced to conform to what their parents did". They don't want that, and frankly most people who want to feel free to express themselves don't want it either. The wardrobe malfunction stuff is true for uniforms as well, especially if you are a 14yo girl (parents of daughters will understand). The same is true for basically all of the points you made. And body image problems are often made a lot worse by NOT having freedom to choose what you want to wear. Also, studies looking at uniform vs educational outcomes have never found statistical meaningful correlations for our against uniforms.
These days schools in the UK only have uniforms due to a tradition introduced for reasons no longer relevant today.
Have you been to both schools that have a uniform and schools that do not? I feel that a lot of people in this thread are speaking from one side of their experiences without regard for the other and then claiming it is some kind of propaganda. I don't know what you want me and others to say other than that we're not paid by Big Uniform to say anything.
I've unfortunately been to more schools than I'd like to, and there is a stark behavioral contrast in ones that do have a uniform, especially for public schools. The only 'individuality' that students are stripped of is the frequency of bullying, knife fights, truancy, and other behavioral problems. People in uniforms are just less of a jerk and more of a member of the school community. I'm not sure what phenomenon in behavioral science this is, but people are easier to discipline in uniform and it shows.
Yes. The junior school my kids went to has uniform. The senior school was not. I realise that is not quite the same thing though. That said I have a mix my friends had a mix of uniform and non-uniform schools, and their kids also are mix. Across the board the opinion from parents and children is uniforms are old fashioned and need to go.
That said there are undoubtedly regional issues, and the areas I, my kids, my friends,, and their kids are in tend towards the middle-class and up, in terms of affluence. That would suggest a degree that affluence dictates behaviour, which is unfair because each school is different and the social background of the students doesn't always tell you if the school is a nice place or not.
The studies around behaviour and uniform have found that uniform does play a part sometimes, but usually there are other route causes and attacks related to the clothes the kids wore was just a symptom of other issues. So the lack of a uniform does not tell you if behaviour is going to be good or bad in a school. Schools have other tools that are more effective at handling behavioural issues, and some schools just have a harder time due to their location.
I worked at a school in Leeds a few years ago. They closed 3 other schools and brought together 3 different racial groups into a new single school. It was a nightmare at first but over time has improved to the point they no longer need a permanent police presence. This school has a uniform, but I highly doubt that had anything to do with their troubles.
Just FYI but studies say that the poorer a kid is the more likely they are to go out of their way to dress in designer clothes and buy expensive things to hide the fact that they are poor to their peers, and this produces poorer outcomes when it comes to their education as they prioritise paid work and other activities aside from their own education to pay for these things. This leads to poorer academic results and dropping out of school to pursue paid work at the expense of their long-term future.
Self-expression and freedom is great but not in every circumstance.