Information On School Uniforms
A school
uniform is
an outfit—a
set of standardized clothes—worn primarily for an educational
institution. They are common in primary and secondary
schools in
various countries (see list of countries below). When used, they form
the basis of a school's dress
code.
Traditionally school uniforms have been largely subdued and
professional.] Boys' uniforms often consist of dark short or
long trousers and
light-colored shirt,
often with a tie.
Girls' uniforms vary greatly between countries and schooling systems,
but typically consist of adress or
a blouse worn
either with a skirt or culottes or
under a pinafore;
some countries allow girls to wear trousers. The use of a blazer or
suit-like jacket for
either gender is also fairly common, especially in countries with
relatively cold weather. In some countries, school uniform is
essentially standard in all schools using it, but in others, such as
Great Britain, each school has an individual uniform, varying in
colour and often making use of badges.
Most
public schools in Canada do not require that students wear uniforms,
but most include rules against indecent or offensive clothing. Many
regions of Canada have publicly-funded Catholic schools, and many of
these schools have uniforms. Prior to the integration of
Newfoundland's public (government-funded) school system in the late
1990s, those public schools administered by the Catholic Church
mandated strict, uniform-like dress codes (shirts and ties for boys,
dresses or skirts for girls) at the elementary and junior high school
levels, lifting most restrictions for high school students. In recent
years, some schools have eliminated skirts and kilts, in favour of
dress pants for girls, or replaced skirts with culottes or
a garment called a skort which
is a skirt that has an attached short on the inside for modesty.
Also, bike shorts are sometimes worn under skirts. The tops are
either dress shirts or golf shirts, and either sweaters or
sweatshirts are worn. Grey or khaki dress pants are worn by both boys
and girls.
Japan
introduced school
uniforms in
the late 19th century. Today, school uniforms are almost universal in
the public and private school systems. They are also used in some
women's colleges. The Japanese word for uniform is seifuku (制服?).
In
the majority of elementary schools, students are not required to wear
a uniform to school. Where uniforms are required, many boys wear
white shirts, short pants, and caps. Young boys often dress more
formally in their class pictures than they do other days of the
school year. Girls' uniforms might include a gray pleated skirt and
white blouse. Occasionally the sailor outfit is used for girls. The
uniform codes may vary by season to work with the environment and
occasion. It is common for both boys and girls to wear brightly
colored caps to prevent traffic accidents. Also, it is normal for
uniforms to be worn outside of school areas. This is going out of
fashion and many students are wearing casual dress.
The
Japanese junior- and senior-high-school uniform traditionally
consists of a military
style uniform for
boys and a sailor
outfitfor
girls. These uniforms are based on Meiji
era formal
military dress, themselves modeled on European-style naval uniforms.
The sailor outfit replace the undivided hakama (andon
bakama 行灯袴)
designed by Utako
Shimoda between
1920–30.[18]While
this style of uniform is still in use, many schools have moved to
more Western-pattern parochial
school uniform
styles. These uniforms consist of a white shirt,
tie, blazer or sweater
vest with
school crest, and tailored trousers (often not of the same color as
the blazer or sweater vest) for boys and a white blouse, tie, blazer
with school crest, and tartan skirt
for girls.
Much
like the male uniform, the gakuran,
the sailor outfit bears a similarity to various military
styled naval uniforms.
The uniform generally consists of a blouse attached
with a sailor-style collar and a pleated skirt.
There are seasonal variations for summer and winter: sleeve length
and fabric are adjusted accordingly. A ribbon is tied in the front
and laced through a loop attached to the blouse. Several variations
on the ribbon include neckties, bolo
ties, neckerchiefs,
and bows. Common colors are navy blue, white, grey, light green and
black.
Shoes,
socks, and other accessories are sometimes included as part of the
uniform. These socks are typically navy or white. The shoes are
typically brown or black penny
loafers.
Although not part of the prescribed uniform, alternate forms of
legwear (such as loose
socks,
knee-length stockings, or similar) are also commonly matched by more
fashionable girls with their sailor outfits.
Regardless
of what type of uniform any particular school assigns its students,
all schools have a summer version of the uniform (usually consisting
of just a white dress shirt and the uniform slacks for boys and a
reduced-weight traditional uniform or blouse and tartan skirt with
tie for girls) and a sports-activity uniform (a polyester track suit
for year-round use and a t-shirt and short pants for summer
activities). Depending on the discipline level of any particular
school, students may often wear different seasonal and activity
uniforms within the same classroom during the day. Individual
students may attempt to subvert the system of uniforms by wearing
their uniforms incorrectly or by adding prohibited elements such as
large loose
socks or
badges. Girls may shorten their skirts; boys may wear trousers about
the hips, omit ties, or keep their shirts unbuttoned.
Because
school uniforms are a popular fetish
item,
second-hand sailor outfits and other items of school wear are
brokered through underground establishments known as burusera,
although changes to Japanese law have made such practices difficult.
The pop groupOnyanko
Club had
a provocative song called "Don't Strip Off the Sailor
Suit!"[19] Sailor
outfits, along with other styles of school uniform, play an
undeniably large role in otakuculture
as evidenced by the large amount of anime, manga,
and dōjinshi featuring
characters in uniform, Sailor
Moon being
one of the most popular examples.
School
uniforms were first introduced on a large scale during the reign
of King
Henry VIII.[41] The
uniforms of the time were referred as "bluecoats", as they
consisted of long trench-coat-style jackets dyed blue. Blue was the
cheapest available dye and showed humility amongst all children. The
first school to introduce this uniform was Christ's
Hospital and
it is the oldest uniform of any school.[42]
In
1870 the Elementary
Education act introduced
free primary education for all children. The popularity of uniforms
increased and eventually most schools had a uniform.[41] During
this period most uniforms reflected the trends of the age, with boys
wearing short
trousers and
blazers until roughly the age of puberty and then long trousers from
about 14 or 15. Girls mainly wore blouse, tunic dress and pinafore
later progressing towards the beginning of the 20th century
to gymslips.[41][43]
These
uniforms continued until the 1950s when after the Butler
reforms secondary
education was made free and the school leaving age was raised to 15.
These reforms encouraged schools to implement uniform codes which
were similar to other schools. Distinct "summer" and
"winter" uniforms were sometimes required, particularly for
girls where dresses were mandated for summer and gymslip for
winter.[41]
A gymslip is
a sleeveless tunic with
a pleated skirt most commonly seen as part of a girl's school
uniform.
The term gymslip primarily refers to athletic wear; otherwise the
term pinafore
dress (British
English) or jumper
dress (American
English) is usually preferred.
The
introduction of the gymslip as female athletic wear is credited
to Martina
Bergman-Österberg,
the founder of a college for training female physical
education teachers
in Hampstead.[1] Gymslips
were also worn by female gymnasts andathletes from
the 1880s to the 1920s, as they were more mobile than traditional
female attire, but still modest enough to deter the possibility of
them becoming sexualised during their activity. Even in this modest
attire, gymslips as athletic wear were still worn strictly out of
public view. [2][3]
When
not worn as athletic wear, gymslips or pinafore dresses are generally
worn over a blouse and tie and
replace askirt.
Underneath a gymslip, a pair of white knee
socks are
more common than a pair of tights, matching regulationknickers may
also be mandatory. A blazer may
be worn over the top. First emerging in the 1900s, by the 1920s it
had become compulsory in many private, convent and high
schools,
and thus became commonly worn by girls in Britain as
part of their school
uniform.[4]
Although
now largely replaced by modern-style uniforms, gymslips are still
synonymous with schoolgirls,
leading to the slang term "gymslip mum" to describe
a teenage
pregnancy in
Britain.[5] Well-known
modern depictions of gymslips include the St.
Trinians films,
and less traditionally,schoolgirl
uniform pornography,
a use given more public recognition when in 1991 politician Clare
Short condemned
the fetish, saying "the Page
3 girl in
a gymslip may be over 16, but the imagery is clearly intended to
present schoolgirls as sexual objects"
According
to the National
Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP),
the fraction of American public schools requiring some sort of
uniform rose from 3% in 1997 to 21% in 2000.
Adolfo
Santos, a political science professor at the University
of Houston–Downtown,
stated that many Hispanic
communities in the United States choose
uniforms because many immigrants originate from countries with
schools requiring uniforms.[51]
In
1994, the Long
Beach Unified School District,
in Southern
California,
required school uniforms in all elementary and middle schools. This
began a trend for uniforms in American elementary public
schools, especially in urban school
districts. President
Clinton mentioned
LBUSD's efforts in his 1996 State
of the Union Address.
The adoption of school or district-wide uniform policies (or,
alternatively, "standardized dress codes" – which are not
as rigid as school uniform requirements, but allow some leeway within
set parameters) has been motivated by a need to counter "gang
clothing"
(or, in the alternative, the pressure for families to purchase
upscale-label clothing to avoid their children being ignored by
"fashion cliques"), as well as to improvemorale and school
discipline.
By
2010, the percentage of U.S. public schools requiring uniforms had
increased from 3% in 1996 to 18%
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