Are School Dress Codes too Restrictive?

[Scomagia]

I'm going to guess you're a male.

Yes.

Maybe you should consider the inconvenience that goes with girls having to wear skirts.

[Diopolis]

Yes.

Maybe you should consider the inconvenience that goes with girls having to wear skirts.

I've worn a kilt before. I know what it's like to wear a skirt.

[Novus America]

Yes.

Maybe you should consider the inconvenience that goes with girls having to wear skirts.

Certainly skirts should not be mandatory. But I am okay with them as an option.

The standard school uniform should be slacks with a button down or polo shirt.
For all genders, as such clothes are perfectly appropriate for most jobs and can be worn by men or women.

But an optional skirt is okay. I agree it should not be mandatory for girls though.

[Scomagia]

Maybe you should consider the inconvenience that goes with girls having to wear skirts.

I've worn a kilt before. I know what it's like to wear a skirt.

Except that you receive no grief for not shaving your legs when you wear a kilt. Quite the opposite, in fact.

[Brutality Savage]

No Dress Codes For School.

[Diopolis]

I've worn a kilt before. I know what it's like to wear a skirt.

Except that you receive no grief for not shaving your legs when you wear a kilt. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Then wear ankle length skirts instead of knee length.

[Scomagia]

Except that you receive no grief for not shaving your legs when you wear a kilt. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Then wear ankle length skirts instead of knee length.

Still more of a hassle than pants.

[NERVUN]

After 14 years with them, I feel I can reasonably say that school uniforms do the same thing as uniforms for the military. They: Provide identification, provide appropriate clothing for the task at hand, promote a feeling of togetherness.

They do not: Erase individuality, prevent bulling.

They MAY: Ease a teacher's job as they don't have to make judgements regarding if something is appropriate or not, or political/religious or not. Be cheaper than regular clothing.

But the last two depends a great deal on various factors.

[New haven america]

Uniforms require girls to wear skirts somewhat frequently. Dress codes rarely due, except at extremely religious schools.

They shouldn't, though. Uniforms should require pants for all. No skirts. They're impractical and, frankly, unfair.

What if it gets hot out and students are only allowed to wear pants?

Should shorts and skirts be allowed to logically help deal with the heat?

[Great Algerstonia]

School uniforms can be quite bad in terms of temperature. At my local Catholic school, there was a strict dress code that had some sort of pants I can’t remember at this moment or skirts. But it never specified which gender should wear which clothing. So on a boiling hot day, some boys literally wore skirts because it technically didn’t violate the rules.

This comes to show that dress codes are too restrictive, in some places.

[Scomagia]

They shouldn't, though. Uniforms should require pants for all. No skirts. They're impractical and, frankly, unfair.

What if it gets hot out and students are only allowed to wear pants?

Should shorts and skirts be allowed to logically help deal with the heat?

Sure.

[Katganistan]

Meh. They're uniforms.

I'm going to guess you're a male.

Many school with uniforms in my area allow the choice of dress slacks or a skirt

[Costa Fierro]

But the last two depends a great deal on various factors.

Really depends on how anal the teacher wants to be. At the schools I went to that had uniforms, most of the higher ups were concerned about uniforms but most teachers basically couldn't care less as long as you wore it. If memory serves me correctly I was only pulled up for a violation once because I wore a cream coloured undershirt as opposed to a white one underneath my polo shirt as an extra layer during winter (wasn't part of the uniform officially but the school permitted it).

It's interesting the differences in attitudes between Americans and some in the Commonwealth such as I, who have been in schools with both uniforms and non-uniforms.

[Forsher]

One's youth should be a time to have fun. This mind-numbing capitalist world of ours will erase kids' individuality soon enough, no need to accelerate it.

Nonsense. Youth is for learning.
We don't need to have a discussion over what shorts are too short if students can't wear shorts at all.

Trousers, skirts and dresses are inferior clothing. Utterly impractical, in fact. Shorts are God's own clothing.

[Page]

After 14 years with them, I feel I can reasonably say that school uniforms do the same thing as uniforms for the military. They: Provide identification, provide appropriate clothing for the task at hand, promote a feeling of togetherness.

They do not: Erase individuality, prevent bulling.

They MAY: Ease a teacher's job as they don't have to make judgements regarding if something is appropriate or not, or political/religious or not. Be cheaper than regular clothing.

But the last two depends a great deal on various factors.

IIRC stuff you've said about your life on here, you have lived in Japan for a long time and are/were a teacher there? I can see how that would influence your perspective.

I do think uniforms erase individuality, especially because one's childhood and teens are the years when one most wants to experiment with self-expression. For me, choosing what to wear as a teen really helped me discover things about myself. For awhile I had the "skater" look, it started out as just conformity to peer pressure because skate shoes were in (though I was the only one who actually skated), but later on I realized that casual, baggy clothes were a true reflection of the type of person I am.

[Costa Fierro]

I do think uniforms erase individuality, especially because one's childhood and teens are the years when one most wants to experiment with self-expression.

Perhaps you should solicit perspectives of people who have been students in schools with and without uniforms? There's plenty of people in the UK and certain Commonwealth nations that could give you a perspective on what it was like growing up with these kinds of things.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I do think uniforms erase individuality, especially because one's childhood and teens are the years when one most wants to experiment with self-expression.

Perhaps you should solicit perspectives of people who have been students in schools with and without uniforms? There's plenty of people in the UK and certain Commonwealth nations that could give you a perspective on what it was like growing up with these kinds of things.

I'm one of them. I agree with him.

[Costa Fierro]

I'm one of them. I agree with him.

Eh, I don't really believe that kids were about "self expression" in clothing anyway. Most of the time they wore what their parents buy them.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

After 14 years with them, I feel I can reasonably say that school uniforms do the same thing as uniforms for the military. They: Provide identification, provide appropriate clothing for the task at hand, promote a feeling of togetherness.

They do not: Erase individuality, prevent bulling.

They MAY: Ease a teacher's job as they don't have to make judgements regarding if something is appropriate or not, or political/religious or not. Be cheaper than regular clothing.

But the last two depends a great deal on various factors.

I'll address each point individually:
(1) Provide identification: Sure, can't disagree with that, unless it's the case of my second school which came up with the idea of a uniform with no school logos.
(2) Provide appropriate clothing for the task at hand: Not necessarily. They often provide a one-size-fits-all approach, where said one size (not literal obviously) might not even fit most. See the schools which demand full uniform compliance when it is ridiculously warm/hot outside, the ones who insist on 'no outside coats' when the heating has gone etc. Teachers are often rather anal about it.
(3) I'm not seing how 'a feeling of togetherness' in a school atmosphere honestly.
(4) They do not erase individuality: I mean they kind of do, they prevent students from showing things they wish to show through their clothing, and more and more often through hairstyles etc. I'm sure it might also have some effects on the ability of students to make friends as well, if you can see it might be quite useful to be able to grasp shared interests through clothing style.
(5) Prevent Bullying: Correct
(6) That teachers job is made very very easy if they don't have to make that call in the first place. All is appropriate, if it is religious or political so what?
(7) They're not cheaper.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I'm one of them. I agree with him.

Eh, I don't really believe that kids were about "self expression" in clothing anyway. Most of the time they wore what their parents buy them.

Maybe in primary school, not so much later on though.

[Forsher]

Perhaps you should solicit perspectives of people who have been students in schools with and without uniforms? There's plenty of people in the UK and certain Commonwealth nations that could give you a perspective on what it was like growing up with these kinds of things.

I'm one of them. I agree with him.

You're self evidently wrong.

Unless you believe that everyone you know wears their uniform in precisely the same way?

You get rolled up jumper sleeve wearers, jumper vs jacket wearers, shoes versus sandals, hats vs no hats, long versus short sleeves, shorts vs trousers (although, in practice, here, pretty much everyone wears shorts... note most schools here still have gender segregated uniforms, which is problematic) and so on.

The more pieces of uniform there are, the more variety you get.

And, of course, people don't wear uniforms all the time, do they? They wear mufti outside of school. All uniforms do is substitute a wider variety for choices which indicate different patterns of wear for a narrower variety. If anything this enhances individuality because it means people pick up subtler differences and gives a common base of interpretation. As I pointed out before... clothes cannot convey individuality: they're incapable of doing so.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I'm one of them. I agree with him.

You're self evidently wrong.

Unless you believe that everyone you know wears their uniform in precisely the same way?

You get rolled up jumper sleeve wearers, jumper vs jacket wearers, shoes versus sandals, hats vs no hats, long versus short sleeves, shorts vs trousers (although, in practice, here, pretty much everyone wears shorts... note most schools here still have gender segregated uniforms, which is problematic) and so on.

The more pieces of uniform there are, the more variety you get.

And, of course, people don't wear uniforms all the time, do they? They wear mufti outside of school. All uniforms do is substitute a wider variety for choices which indicate different patterns of wear for a narrower variety. If anything this enhances individuality because it means people pick up subtler differences.

In the UK, schools are very anal about their uniform policy. Shirts must be tucked in, you must wear a tie, you can't wear a jacket unless it's the school jacket and their's often no jumper equivalent. I don't know of anybody who ever woar a hat to school, and school shorts kind of died out in early primary.

[Technoscience Leftwing]

* In the Russian Empire, the boys' school uniform looked like a soldier’s uniform (a cap, belt with a buckle, cloth uniform and tunic). In girls, the uniform was similar to the maid's clothes: a dark dress and a white or black apron. For the conservative militarist royal empire, this is natural.
* After the revolution, uniforms were canceled. There were voluntary youth movements - bourgeois (scouts) and communist (pioneers) they had their own uniform, but it was not obligatory.
* Under Stalin, after the war, there was a turn towards conservatism: they reintroduced a uniform similar to the gymnasium uniform of the tsarist period. My father wore a cap, a belt with a buckle, and a cloth uniform.
* Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, the soldier’s design of a uniform for boys was abandoned, replacing it with a civil blue jacket with an emblem on the sleeve (the sun and a book, signs of enlightenment). The girls still wore a brown dress and an apron (black on ordinary days, and white on holidays). In addition, there was a pioneer form for special events of the pioneer organization: a white blouse and blue skirt, a white shirt and black pants, a red cap like those of pilots, and a red tie. Pioneers wore a red tie at school. The younger ones (Oktjabrjata) had badges in the form of a red five-pointed star with a portrait of V.I. Lenin, and the pioneers and Komsomol members - badges in the form of a flag with the profile of Lenin.
* Under Yeltsin, every uniform was canceled (liberalization). There was freedom in clothes, but also rivalry in price and fashion, the contempt of the rich for poorly dressed students.
* Under Putin, the uniform was returned (conservatism), but in the form of an office dress code: white top, black bottom. And the rest is at the discretion of a particular school.

Here is an evolution.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

* In the Russian Empire, the boys' school uniform looked like a soldier’s uniform (a cap, belt with a buckle, cloth uniform and tunic). In girls, the uniform was similar to the maid's clothes: a dark dress and a white or black apron. For the conservative militarist royal empire, this is natural.
* After the revolution, uniforms were canceled. There were voluntary youth movements - bourgeois (scouts) and communist (pioneers) they had their own uniform, but it was not obligatory.
* Under Stalin, after the war, there was a turn towards conservatism: they reintroduced a uniform similar to the gymnasium uniform of the tsarist period. My father wore a cap, a belt with a buckle, and a cloth uniform.
* Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, the soldier’s design of a uniform for boys was abandoned, replacing it with a civil blue jacket with an emblem on the sleeve (the sun and a book, signs of enlightenment). The girls still wore a brown dress and an apron (black on ordinary days, and white on holidays). In addition, there was a pioneer form for special events of the pioneer organization: a white blouse and blue skirt, a white shirt and black pants, a red cap like those of pilots, and a red tie. Pioneers wore a red tie at school. The younger ones (Oktjabrjata) had badges in the form of a red five-pointed star with a portrait of V.I. Lenin, and the pioneers and Komsomol members - badges in the form of a flag with the profile of Lenin.
* Under Yeltsin, every uniform was canceled (liberalization). There was freedom in clothes, but also rivalry in price and fashion, the contempt of the rich for poorly dressed students.
* Under Putin, the uniform was returned (conservatism), but in the form of an office dress code: white top, black bottom. And the rest is at the discretion of a particular school.

Here is an evolution.

Yeltsin had it about right, I see.

[Brightlake]

According to my personal observation, there are some logical reasons for dresscode in school that not about being restrictive, reducing creativity, or else;

1. Some nations do enforce school uniform for various reasons and functions some of examples are, that Japanese primary students wear bright orange hat that may be not look really fashionable or match with their uniform but the hat make them more noticeable while crossing the street make car driver aware of their present; another example is some nation write the name of school in the uniform that make people around them could easily helping them or contact the school in case their student lost in their way home, had oto accident, or even skipping class.

2. Some arguments said that uniform is killing creativity, School should focus to filling their student's head instead of how they wear their clothes, and others but there should be some rules to prevent this "clothing issues" contra-productive the learning process. Most of the time ultimate freedom may not work even for adults, how we can fully let the kids and teen be 100% decide what they want. Differ by the age and their mental development some students didn't mature enough to really think about effects of their acts.

3. Nowadays with the internet and other technologies, you can just done some of your work shirtless in your bed without going to anywhere. That are saying "don't judge book by the cover" but dress code actually train students how to keep presentable appearance when meet with your boss, clients, subordinates, and society in general. Some industries like art and others may be more lax in term of what presentable appearance are ? but we can't generalize the standard for all. The dresscode in workforce now is tend to be more casual day by day but that didn't mean that you can wear anything they want.