All those are perfectly good reasons for school uniforms in general.
And then your school implements a uniform policy that requires you to buy a blazer for $225 that your child will wear three times a year, and monogrammed socks that are 3 pairs for $45.
That’s some serious graft. But nothing to do with uniforms as a policy. My daughter’s public school has a uniform of sorts but it I just color and style based, not specific required brands
Uniforms as a policy enables the graft. It has everything to do with the policies.
Try and have a logical discussion. Graft is the problem and a system that allows it will produce it however it is easiest to express.
A uniform is just an idea. It can be an excuse for graft, or it can just be a simple dress code with multiple competing vendors. I’m sorry your system is corrupt but many aren’t.
That feels like an extreme case. I feel like this would only happen in an upper class private school.
Public schools here are insane. It’s like £50 for one sweater. And it’s got to have the school name/ logo on it. So you can’t just go and buy a generic sweater the same colour.
And you’ve got to have at least 2, so when one is getting washed, you’d have one good to go.
There’s black shoes, not trainers, but smart shoes.
White shirts. Black pants/ skirts. Specific socks. £15 a tie, which is specifically in school colours so no going out to buy a cheap generic tie.
Then there’s the PE kit that has to be bought from the school. £20 for shorts. £20 for the polo. £10 for football socks.
Altogether when you’re done it’s around £300. Which, if you’re generally working class/ out of work, you’re fucked.
My sweaters faded after half a year, so mum had to buy more. They’d of fit me the entire time, but she had to buy new ones pretty much every 6 months because they just faded in the wash. And that was in the 00s. My mum hates buying uniform for my younger sisters, apparently it’s crazy priced.
Now schools here are doing blazers too, god knows how much they are.
@thepixelfox @Zagorath @pineapplelover @dgriffith Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, the flipside to all this is that high school kids can be incredibly judgemental when it comes to fashion. Teenaged girls especially, but boys too.
Especially in mixed-income or aspirational middle class areas, you will have parents who will pay up to buy designer labels and Nike/Adidas footwear for their little precious.
Then you have the kids whose parents have more limited means, and who wear hand-me-downs or stuff they get from Kmart or Target.
Immediately, that brings class into the classroom. It says to the working class kids that you are less than.
Having a uniform — ideally one that can be purchased from a discount department store — levels that playing field.
And yes, uniforms are authoritarian. Had you asked me 20 years ago, I’d have wholeheartedly agreed they need to be banished.
What changed my mind was talking to a former neighbour, around 10 years ago, who had been a working class kid raised by a single mum.
She’d originally went to high school at a selective entry school that didn’t have a uniform. And she constantly felt left out, and the better off kids whose parents could afford to buy them nicer clothes regularly picked on her.
She eventually changed schools to one that had a set uniform.
So school uniforms can be egalitarian — as long as they’re affordable.
