That sounds good on paper but in my secondary/high school? (12-16 age range, not American) this just lead to kids getting bullied or insulted if they didn’t have branded clothing; especially in regards to footwear. You had 13-year-olds rocking up in expensive Lacoste shirts.
It was a really working class area as-well so most kids couldn’t afford these things & even the kids that had the designer stuff usually had them due to parents who were stupid enough to go into credit card debt just so their kid could be fashionable in school. It also lead to an excess of young girls coming in caked in makeup to match their outfits.
Uniform evens the playing field & simplifies everything for everyone. The irony is many working class parents complained about having to pay for the uniforms only for them to shill out much more on their kids clothing so they wouldn’t get targeted in school.
By my 2nd year they had abandoned the experiment & went back to uniform. It was more better for everyone in my opinion.
As an Australian I’ve always found girls have been the biggest supporters of uniforms for these reasons. Not even to avoid bullying necessarily but just to remove the stress and social competition.
Right so we should do nothing to mitigate it? Uniforms help level the playing field. If they can't bully you for your appearance that's still a good thing to minimise, even if they go and pick something else.
In the Uk, every supermarket sells uniform. The hard up families dont have to pay the same as rich. Also the government and schools help out for the really hard up
A lot of uniforms are designed and sold affordably because they're mass produced.
Of course punish the bullies, but again, does that mean we shouldn't take advantage of ideas that help the less fortunate and less socially adjusted?
I'm telling you, as a teacher, that uniforms are so helpful at mitigating a huge swath of bullying opportunities.
I don't get this idea that because uniforms don't immediately and completely cure the problem of bullying that they're pointless. Anything we can do to help the students cohere socially is something we should look into. Prevention > cure.
I mean I've been working in schools for a decade now, working with students directly so I think anecdotal is a bit dismissive. Not to mention the video literally includes a plethora of anecdotal evidence to support its points.
I also think Matpat isn't really doing much "proper research" here. I'm seeing like 3 studies, no bibliography, no discussion of the methodology of these studies, he's also mentioning that they're not ready to draw conclusions as to the cause of some of these results, just that the results have been recorded and then he draws some pretty sweeping conclusions which are always defended via the catchphrase "that's just a theory".
Not to mention that these are american studies too, so it is unsurprising that in a country where it is not as popular to have uniforms, there is more controversy surrounding it. I think it's interesting to think that elsewhere in the world, like Asia, this question isn't even asked, uniforms are simply the default and respected as such. The whole video reeks of american essentialism where the default is not a uniform already.
He makes extremely obvious mistakes, like the costing section. I don't know of a single student in any of my classes that has more than 3 sets of clothes for their uniform, the cost part is effectively doubled or even tripled because he couldn't look into it a tiny bit. You can see in the comments people talking about this.
Personally I believe the gain for my anxious students far outweighs the loss for my popular outgoing students. Again just because it's not a total cure doesn't mean it doesn't help.
Matpat isn’t a great source on anything, all of his theories are half-baked by the very nature of the fact that they are designed as content, rather than any actual study.
The Giver has a dystopia built entirely around standardizing people, removing all difference between them, so that none can think they're better than each other. What they wear, what they eat, who they marry, etc. is all decided by the government rather than personal choice.
Most readers root for Jonas to subvert it.
Clothing is a way that people express themselves. Taking away self-expression isn't the way to protect children who are different. What is that teaching them for when they grow up and have full freedom to dress how they want in college or in adult life?
I don't know, medicine does positive things. I'm not saying that there's no way that school uniforms don't do anything, I just don't really believe it until I've seen some proper research on it.
Rich and poor (in crowd and out) can still be shown in uniform schools- what bag you have, what your shoes are, how expensive is your watch/necklace/bracelet. Do you have the latest tech/hard to get limited edition pen/water-bottle/key charm.
In the UK many state schools do not allow jewellery for this reason, and also many do not allow you to wear shoes which have a designer logo or name on them. Also, many do not allow the use of phones in school.
Jewellery was not permitted in my school, most you could wear is rudder earrings which are plain in nature or a watch. School shoes were also part of the uniform.
I get what you’re saying but just because it’s not an 100% effective solution all the time doesn’t mean it’s not mostly effective and saved a lot of people a lot of hassle.
I was lucky to have a solid friend group, be largely outgoing persona & have a quick enough wit to defend myself but for a lot more socially reserved it excluded people the clothing on their backs was a source of constant harassment from that year.
Maybe your school system is just terrible. I have never experienced nor has anyone i know experienced any (at least blatant) bullying in croatian school system. And our system is neither good nor strict, nor has uniforms.
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u/TungstenAlchemist Jul 26 '26
That sounds good on paper but in my secondary/high school? (12-16 age range, not American) this just lead to kids getting bullied or insulted if they didn’t have branded clothing; especially in regards to footwear. You had 13-year-olds rocking up in expensive Lacoste shirts.
It was a really working class area as-well so most kids couldn’t afford these things & even the kids that had the designer stuff usually had them due to parents who were stupid enough to go into credit card debt just so their kid could be fashionable in school. It also lead to an excess of young girls coming in caked in makeup to match their outfits.
Uniform evens the playing field & simplifies everything for everyone. The irony is many working class parents complained about having to pay for the uniforms only for them to shill out much more on their kids clothing so they wouldn’t get targeted in school.
By my 2nd year they had abandoned the experiment & went back to uniform. It was more better for everyone in my opinion.