Seems very much like indoctrination to get kids to “fall in line” and enforced conformity, to try to remove independent thinking.
I’ve always hated the idea of that. What do you think about it?
Imo it’s much better than a cult of clothing brands.
Funny enough, my US schools didn’t regulate shoes, so kids would just get thousand-dollar designer shoes and “show off” anyways. Also, backpacks are not regulated. You could get bullied if your shoes or backback looks “cheap”.
Also, the Android vs iPhone thing.
They’re about training children to comform and obbey arbitrary rules created by people in position of authority and to value impression more than behaviour.
Of the countries I lived in, Britain was the one that had most of this shit and was also the one with the strongest “know your place” and “keep up appearences” mindsets of them all, especially amongst the middle and upper classes which were the ones were this shit was more common (there was a time of working class cultural significance during the 70s and 80s, which were a veritable explosion of creativity with movements like “punk”, but the social mobility and freedom that created it were crushed in the meanwhile, so working class kids can’t make it in the Arts anymore and that whole class is back at being culturally irrelevant outside fighting each other after football games).
Yep. They also seem to completely ignore neurodiverse people; I don’t know what I’d have done if my school had uniforms.
You just suffer then.
Yeah I kinda figured out it’d have been that.
In elementary school we had a cheap (literally cheap, 5 euro) uniform that covered everything so it would protect the underneath clothes from inks, foods, spills. Also it didn’t matter if someone wore some expensive clothes as they were covered.
I noticed immediately from the first days in high school how something like that would have been useful as bullies would pick anyone about their clothing appearance. So there was an “unofficial” uniform, if you didn’t wear a brand name sweater then you were a loser to bully.
Now, I saw the elite schools uniform, expensive shirt under an expensive cardigan and a tie… that is ridiculous and I feel a way to take more money from the rich families as the expensive uniform can be bought only from them and need to purchase multiple sets to wear over a week
Schools in my area had a dress code, and my school almost succeeded at requiring a select jacket model as a must (done by a single local company connected to a school admin, wink-wink), but faced backlash over poor price/quality balance 🙃
One of the unusual upsides, many men well in their 20s, who otherwise couldn’t be bothered, had their high school formal suits to wear on future funerals and weddings. I was one of them and that was handy.
If the uniform should be there, to ensure it’s not hostile, it may be:
- Of basic rules. Formal dresses, dark under the waist line, white over it.
- Civilian models, without a glimpse of cop/military details and ranks, insignias.
- Common to everyone without any color differentiation (and requirements to buy it in exact shade of a color).
- Rather cheap or even subsidized, shared from older to younger kids, because children are frequently growing out of them and it’s a bummer to buy ten+ sets of dresses.
- Purposely unisex and non-sexualized models.
Nah, there’s a place to exercise your sense of fashion like special events in school. Good schools encourage independent thinking in other avenues. Also, authoritarianism and conformity don’t always go together.
For me, the uniform was liberating. People who wanted to bully me needed to find something more substantive than just my clothes. Bullies tend to be stupid, so this was hard for them.
If your individuality is all tied up in your physical appearance, try to develop your mind a bit. I am nonconformist in a thousand ways, each of which is more important than how i dress.
Oh absolutely can be, and is absolutely often used as such.
However, as usual depends on the context. Properly subsidized it can help students not only gave greater pride in their appearance and success in classes if you aren’t having to worry about not getting good clothes or any that fit properly.
On the other hand it can be cripplingly over expensive and cheap ass.
I didn’t have good casual clothes in school.
On the other hand, the uniforms were priced to the point of extortion, so I’d say they came off as elitist flexing, if not authoritarian.
The only winner is getting kids decent clothes that aren’t expensive or drab. And yes, there absolutely is a middle ground for that.
I loved school uniforms as a deeply autistic young man who really, REALLY struggled with all the silent peer pressures of fashion.
There was an outfit I could wear without half a thought every day and no one cared.
School uniforms level the outward socioeconomic presentation of students.
If it weren’t school uniforms, then the oppositional-defiant disorder would present in some students another way. Not statistically relevant.
Honestly I kinda liked our school uniforms when I was a kid. Course for us it was just like jeans and a solid color Polo. Maybe khakis were allowed as well, I don’t recall. Made things easy made things simple.
I always hated it growing up, too. My school didn’t even have a uniform, only a dress code, and I hated that, too.
But my kids go to a school with a uniform, and now I can see the advantages:
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this school subsidizes the uniforms heavily, even to the point of giving them away outright to students in need, so it represents a form of clothing that is affordable for all
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kids can’t fight with parents about what they wear to school, because it’s predetermined
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every kid wears the same thing, which helps smooth out class-indicators: kids don’t get bullied for wearing hand-me-downs or unfashionable clothes because everyone wears the same thing
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makes it very easy to determine who is supposed to be on campus and who is not; similarly, since the school has a big emphasis on outside-the-classroom learning, makes it very easy to identify students out on fieldwork
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saves me money since the uniforms are unisex and my son can wear the hand-me-downs of his older sisters
And to address your criticism: Yes, uniforms tend to promote group cohesion but that’s not always a bad thing. It encourages collaboration over competition, for example.
Point 3 has always been a great equaliser. I grew up in a household that was tight for money, and I never felt that my school wear defined my “class”, quite the opposite.
Now I’m older and am in a comparatively fortunate position financially, I’m happy to kit out my kids in a uniform. I don’t really want them flashing brand names or in an arms race to look the most fashionable, and I don’t want the less fortunate folk in the class to feel left behind.
If a uniform is plain and inexpensive, I think the positives outweigh the negatives.
As a parent of 2 kids under 10, at this age they don’t care about brands. The school uniforms are much more expensive than any t shirts or shorts or track pants from Kmart or bigW (Aussie retailers). Poorer kids still get hand me downs and second hand, whereas richer kids get brand new. Most kids are only-child these days, so the concept of hand me downs is less prevalent within a family.
For teens, I can understand that point, but for teens I think self expression and exploring identity are key parts of growing up.
My oldest is a senior in highschool. From what I have observed, appearance – especially for teenage girls – is less about self expression and more about seeking approval from other girls. Clothing is entirely a status symbol.
There’s often a few girls who are the “trend setters”, a much larger group of “followers” that basically look like carbon copies of one another, and yet another group that doesn’t follow the latest “trend” because they either can’t afford to or (much less often) don’t care.
My daughter is obsessed with looks, as are most of her peers. Trying desperately to fit in because she’s not yet mature enough to realize that it doesn’t matter if all the other girls “like” her. It only really matters if she likes herself.
I’ve told her, only half joking, that she will know a guy is good boyfriend material when he asks her which books she’s read lately.
Parts of growing up that are intentionally suppressed
I guess it depends on the strictness of a dress code but theres usually ways to express and explore even with a set clothing expectation.
About the class indicators thing: don’t people find a way around that by wearing expensive watches, jewelry or accessories?
Usually people find a way to value signal imho.
In my experienfe they just verbally brag about how rich their parents are lmao.
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It’s only authoritarian if the teachers / administration also wear a similar uniform, but slightly different to denote rank.
Otherwise, it’s actually accidentally kind of socialistic, in that the divisions of class between your peers becomes less obvious, and there’s more cohesion with your fellow students versus those in authority. It’s easier for the students to rally together against something when they’re all wearing the same thing.
Otherwise, it’s actually beneficial to authoritarians to have no dress code, because student cliques would strengthen, and infighting would be more common.
For the USA, think about how both major parties use color to help separate people. If the colors of Democrats and Republicans were the same though, the division would be weaker.
Uniforms have historically been used to unify groups rather than to control them.
It’s still forcing people to wear something they don’t want.
Socialism isn’t the opposite of authoritarian. It’s always authoritarian to mandate uniforms, it has benefits as you and others have outlined but you are stripping people of their individuality and mandating what people can do that’s classic authoritarianism
I think there’s a line where mandates are authoritarian and where they aren’t, and it comes down the house beneficial for society or a group it is, but in particular also how exclusionary it is. Your view on determining it by face value is too simple for this.
For example, if you mandate only Hispanic kids to wear uniforms, by your logic, that is more moral and less authoritarian because less students are being made to wear a uniform as opposed to all of them.
Yet, it’s obvious that is not the case, despite fitting into your statement.
Likewise, individualism has limits before it’s simply chaos too, and therefore should also be looked as to what point it instead brings harm. People here have, for example, listed many reasons not having a uniform code can be detrimental as well (wealth class divisions, strengthening of cliques, weakening of the student body’s efforts against things an administration will do).
Not to mention, even in your call for a lack of uniforms, you are still technically imposing mandates: not only against those who do wish to have them, but likely against what people want to actually wear. I doubt you want students going in boxers or bikinis for example.
And lastly, I’d like to mention that socialism is counter to authoritarianism. Authoritarianism might use some socialist aspects sometimes, but socialism itself isn’t in the same spectrum as authoritarianism.
divisions of class between your peers becomes less obvious
Nope! Kids will always find ways around that.
There are valid arguments for and against, but I really don’t think the word ‘authoritarianism’ is at all applicable here.
Definitely applicable.
Entire atmosphere feels a lot more weirder because everyone is forced to wear the same thing. Reminds me of when I was in China, where they forced little kids to wear the little red scarf, which symbolized communism.
In your example it can be. But if no nationalistic rationale is behind the uniforms that are worn than it’s not authoritarian.
So it can be but it’s not a given.
I think is preparation for a white collar job. Everyone in the office usually use a uniform and there is nothing wrong with that. I feel like it is an exaggeration
Exactly, preparing for wage slavery, by re-enforcing conformity and “don’t you dare step out of line” from a young age. Authoritarianism.
Btw, China is a State Capitalist regime.
Conforming to society does not equal authoritarianism
It could be if one is forced to conform.
So you want everyone in society to be rogue and fuck the system that keeps things moving? I will never understand this mindset dude.
“If we don’t force everyone to wear the same clothes the fabric of society will collapse!”
Is that what you’re saying?
Tbf, it is about as valid as saying school uniforms are part of a plot to make us all slaves.
It really isn’t. You don’t think our near total control of the ability of children to make decisions about their lives has any effect on how they behave when they get older? Nor that this enforced system of obedience has intended consequences on those children when they become adults?
