School uniforms, what do you think?

I want to help you but your second question seems to be only asking the opinion of students so I stopped there. Do you want adult opinions on the topic?

No, we only need students to answer the questions. I forgot to mention that in my question, I’m sorry!

You can flag the question and ask to edit it. Most people here are over 18, but there are some students.

Thank you, I will definitely do that!

Students do stumble onto this site all the time, but I doubt if the concentration of “kids” here is ever sufficient to generate the volume necessary to efficiently achieve your goals. My niece tells me that there are a truckload of sites devoted to bubbling teenage angst. That’s where you should be.

I understand this isn’t the right place for posting the survey. We were not familiar with English communities and had no idea where to post this, so we’ve been posting our survey on lots of websites. Thank you for your help, we will find other websites that are more focused on students.

Good idea.

I’ll send it to a few people here who are still in school.

Our local school district went to school uniforms 7 years ago. At first there was a lot of resistance to it. But over time, and looking broadly it was a very positive move. We established uniform banks with clothes from outgrown and graduated students to give to people who couldn’t afford them. The District subsidizes the uniforms so they are really quite reasonable in price. ( I bought 4 pairs of Khakis for myself) I think it removed the distraction of some of the costumes I saw before the change. Scholastically, our district improved quite a lot. I don’t really know why, but test scores really improved. We even required the trousers to be worn with a belt so no uniform pants around the knees. I don’t know if there are any articles on it, but we are Newark City Schools in Newark, Ohio. I am proud to have been a part of the change.

@majorrich I’ve seen the same results in Tucson, AZ. In Denver, uniforms have been effective, as long as consistency is maintained.

@Julise There are a lot of research on this, resulting in both pros and cons of uniform use. Check out Google Scholar if you’re looking for research results.

Thank you @JLeslie, that would be great!
And thanks to @majorrich, your story is really useful for us! It’s great that the students on your school have better results after introducing a school uniform.
@linguaphile Hadn’t heard of Google Scholar before. I’m going to take a look at it.

For them. Kids have more pride in their school when dressed in uniforms.

By the way: if you are not in school anymore, but you did wear a school uniform in school and remember how you experienced that, it’s possible to fill in the survey too. Me and my friend decided that responses of adults could also be useful.

Well, also accepting responses from adults will make things a lot easier for you! I’m in college now, but I have worn uniforms as well, so I can help you too. I can also send the link to my friends if you like, but I don’t know whether they will respond or not. Hope it helps!

Nice survey, btw. I think I’ll send it to a couple of my grandkids who are in school.

In your survey, you ask people whether they go to

A) a state-funded school or
B) a private boarding school

What about private schools which are not boarding schools? Did you mean to exclude those, or did they get lost in translation? :)

@longgone You are right, we didn’t mean to exclude private schools haha, my friend is already editing the question. Thanks a lot for your response!

@Daydawn @Dutchess_III Thnx for sending our survey to your friends/grandkids!

^ :]

Also, are the questions just for those who wear uniforms? Maybe you could ask whether or not they wear a uniform, and throw in some opinion questions for those who don’t wear uniforms. Find out what their perceptions are of them.

We thought of that indeed, but decided to make a survey only meant for people who wear/ have worn a school uniform. But thanks anyway!

Then that leaves my grandkids out. They’ve never worn uniforms.

I can’t find the exact reference, but I read that many years ago there was a private school where everyone had to wear pinafores that buttoned up the back. Every student was dependent on other students to get themselves ready for school, and this helped foster community spirit and cooperation, etc. Personally I love the idea, and if properly supervised, it would be a great object lesson for modern kids. http://www.objectlessons.org/childhood-and-games-victorians/girl-s-school-uniform-victorian-replica/s67/a1044/

I wore uniforms all through lower and upper school. Mine were well made, comfortable and fit well, however these days, some cheaper uniforms are made of a very rough material that actually can rub the skin raw on knees and elbows. That’s a huge reason NOT to have uniforms!

“The devil’s in the details”, as we say in English.

@snowberry I like the idea with the pinafores too. It shows a whole different way of how school uniforms can improve social skills. I think it is a good idea to use this in our project.
It’s a real shame that cheaper uniforms are not comfortable these days. If I were an English student and had to wear them, I wouldn’t prefer wearing them. They should make school uniforms more affordable for people who don’t have so much money to spend, without making the uniforms less comfortable.

Done.

Our schools got a partnership with Dickies. I don’t remember where the shirts came from. I’m still wearing the trousers.

Its many decades since I was in school but I wore a unifirm and its main advantage for me was it hid the fact that my family was very poor and couldnt afford nice clothes. I dreaded “non-uniform” days. They were supposed to be fun but I always got bullied for the cheap worn out clothes i wore.

As it turned out, for the price of a pair of jeans our students were able to get two uniforms! Then with the Hand-Me-Down program, many families were able to put more food on the table. (or so we were told) My son liked wearing khakis so dress down days meant a different shirt. lol