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It's about time we abandoned school uniforms altogether, it's a burden on both parents and teachers.
I'm in two minds about school uniform. I don't like the concept in general, but in my own personal experience, I was glad we did have it. We didn't have much money, and my mum was really strict about western clothes. I would have been picked on for not having any designer clothes/branded trainers (good old 90s) and wearing Indian clothes.
We didn't have those stupid logo rules though. As long as it was the right colour and we had a school badge attached to the jumper, it was fine.
I grew up poor and I got picked on for wearing baggy, second-hand uniforms. I would have been so much more comfortable in my own clothes.
School uniforms aren't a thing outside rich people schools here in Denmark.
In all the schools I went to no one gave a shit which brand of clothes you wore and no one was picked on for being poor.
Same here in the US -- I can't recall anyone people being picked on for clothes, though I'm sure it must have happened.
People sure did get picked on for other things, though.
OTOH Denmark has a functioning social security system unlike UK
Most bully's just find something else to bully you about, if not your clothes it's your hair, if not your hair it's the way you walk etc. Bullying can't be solved by trying to make the victims 'normal'. The problem lies with the bully's not the victims.
An alternative is to just have a more strict dress code (eg black shirt, no logo) rather than specific items sold directly by the school.
The idea is break the class divide so rich people don't have better clothes etc. and also create a sense of belonging. Which I don't totally disagree with.
But due to cost that's exactly what happens as poorer people buy second hand.
I would be happy if each school picked from a selection of colours and then you could buy them from anywhere creating decent competition for sales.
I can't say I've ever seen uniforms do anything to combat the class divide. Better of kids had clean, well fitting uniforms and poorer kids had ill fitting hand-me-downs full of holes. Then there is bags, pencil cases, football boots and all the other bits and bobs that go along with school. If anything it's a just a myth that certain people keep telling themselves to pretend the class divide doesn't matter in education.
I think it's to prepare them for wearing a uniform at work more than anything.
As you say it doesn't really help the class divide at all.
Which is itself a bit anachronistic now. Dress codes are much more casual in today's workplaces, especially for more modern companies. Even those that do have uniforms are often a lot simpler.
I think that if kids voted on whether to have a uniform, you'd find that very few schools would have one.
I think that the reason that the state doesn't mandate uniforms in general life for adults on the same grounds is because the adults have a say in the matter and wouldn't tolerate it.