Wearing a school uniform

The hashtags #Lundi14septembre, #balancetonbahut, Jean-Michel Blanquer's declaration that students must wear "republican attire" when they are at school, allow us to read implicitly this obsession with controlling children's bodies and outfits . An ever-renewed obsession, the school uniform makes it possible to question this control and to understand the contemporary issues surrounding the (re)possession of one's body.

School uniform

The school uniform is an outfit that the students of a school must wear when they are enrolled in the school. It differs from the dress code, that is to say, a code that prohibits certain outfits and accessories. The uniform is recognizable. It is composed most of the time of dark, straight trousers, a shirt and a tie for boys, while for girls it is composed of the same shirt and sometimes tie, and is matches with a skirt or a kilt. According to the fashions and the times, the outfits evolve: sometimes we match the outfit with a polo shirt, hats or accessories, the girls claim to wear pants etc. The uniforms widespread in the world are becoming westernized, especially under the influence of British colonization in the countries of Southeast Asia.

Today, the debate around the wearing of uniform reappears in societies where it had disappeared or had become rare. Contemporary multiculturalism, which leads to the mixing of many heterogeneous societies in the same environment, liberalism which defends a strong vision of individual rights and freedoms as well as capitalism which promotes a model of exchanges, free movement of goods and people transform societies into regroupings of different groups whose identity is firmly claimed and individuality put forward. Contemporary individualism thus leads the members of a society to claim their specificities, their originality and their personality. In this individualistic atmosphere, how to restore a sense of community to countries? Should education, playing an essential role, help towards the reunification of cultural pluralities? Can we read the uniform as an effort to unify heterogeneous territories?

In the same dynamic, our contemporary societies inspired by democracy and liberalism, defend strong identity claims (whether in terms of religion or ethnicity), societal (the undermining of patriarchy, the defense of transidentity) or social (critics of socio-economic inequalities). These claims raise questions about the position to adopt in front of others: how to appear in front of others? How can I belong to society while remaining faithful to who I am? Does the uniform reinforce my personality and my belonging to society, or on the contrary, does it represent an archaic effort to engulf me in a whole?

These debates are driven by political and societal issues that emerge in the breathlessness of liberal democracies and the capitalist model of a society turned towards the world. Modern societies are criticized for a certain laxity, a loss of authority on the part of governments, with a loss of legitimacy as well as the loss of the confidence of the people. Any government that attempts to impose discipline (such as the discipline behind wearing a uniform) will be mocked by the civic community. Rousseau's question concerning the organization of the civic community that is the people appears to be strikingly topical. Should we come back to ourselves, turn our backs on globalization and recreate community ties? Can wearing a uniform contribute to creating, in the youth of a country, a feeling of belonging to the same State?

Finally, if all these issues are of a broader and more general scope than our current study, the uniform will be studied according to these contemporary issues. The arguments for and against wearing a uniform will not be studied, but rather the ambitions and consequences of such a wearing. The children, those whom the school tends to instruct or educate, appear as a golden way to introduce a new vision of society. Should they be forced to belong to a society by dressing them up as citizens? Or should they be left to their differences and their plurality, with the risk of an impossible encounter between different members of the same society?

The uniform, between communitarianism and individualism: belonging to a group

The uniform carries a community value, as those who wear them are immediately unified under the same color. We will see three groups of arguments that think of the uniform as the condition of belonging to a society, we will underline the problematic aspects and the stakes of such arguments in the debate on the wearing of the uniform.

The problem with uniforming issues is that there is very little argumentation about the pros and cons of uniforming. I will try to shed some personal light to ask or re-ask the questions of such a port.

The uniform, insofar as it makes it possible to belong to a defined group of people (of pupils within a specific school) ends up leading to the standardization of society. Countries like Germany and Italy allow us to think about this issue. The two countries that went through a totalitarian era, that of Nazi Germany and 20th century Fascist Italy, have both pushed back on wearing school uniforms. There is, in the minds of these countries, an intrinsic link between the wearing of uniforms and the recruitment of young people. In Nazi Germany, children under the age of fourteen wore the uniform (Deutschen Jungvolks) and from the age of fourteen, students wore the uniform of the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend). That is to say the link between a whole state policy and the establishment of the uniform. Children are caught up in the direction the state wants them to take. Who says uniform, would immediately say regimentation, standardization of a group behind a political will.

Today, this political control over children's bodies can be seen in the policy of the Ministry of Education in Malaysia. Malaysia is a country that experienced British domination and on which the latter imposed its way of life. It is in the Anglo-Saxon countries that we find the policy of wearing a uniform the most vigorously. Thus, the port of the uniform was imposed on the Malaysian territory. Even today, the students wear the uniform. It differs according to primary and secondary education. Students must wear the school crest on their uniform, some schools also allow the student's name to appear on the uniform. It is clear, therefore, that belonging to the school is more important than the individuality of the pupil, than his name. Being in a school determines the child. The Ministry of Education in Malaysia goes so far as to check the haircuts of the students it regulates: boys cannot have long hair, gel is prohibited, you cannot change the color of your hair, girls with long hair should tie it up. However, the standardization of students in Malaysia is still marked by differentiations in religious groups or according to their role at school. Indeed, Muslim and Muslim students do not wear the same outfits (see their white tunic called baju kurung) and students who have important roles in the school such as prefects may be assigned another outfit. If we therefore see a desire to standardize students, the uniform does not come to fight against societal differences, it ends up highlighting them. The outfit ends up representing a place in the social hierarchy. The uniform playing an essential role in Malaysian education, failure to respect the wearing of the uniform and the rules of dress lead to various serious sanctions: dismissal from the establishment or corporal punishment. Once again, we see the student's body and outfit subjected to the power of the institution.

But paradoxically, one could think that this control over the habit entails a control over the personality of the students, over their evolution and their development. One thinks of a system in 1984 of Orwell, where each person would be constantly watched by a Big Brother who dresses us similarly. But one of the arguments for wearing a uniform is precisely a highlighting of the assertion of personality. As in the totalitarian systems of the 20th century, we see the wearing of the uniform as the enlistment of a whole youth and consequently, of its enlistment, both psychological and identity. The United Kingdom appears to be an emblematic country with regard to the wearing of uniforms: 98% of public secondary schools impose uniforms and 79% of primary schools. Far from being a totalitarian country or wanting to be totalitarian, it is necessary to understand the wearing of the uniform differently. It is rather a question of fighting against a society of appearances and a reign of brands that poison other societies. The watchword of the British uniform is sobriety: in terms of color, there is only black, white and blue, it is about wearing plain black shoes, plain socks, a dark trousers, a shirt, the school tie and a sweater bearing the school crest, the student's coat must also be sober. While students could compare themselves, see who is wearing the most expensive clothes, who is wearing the fashionable clothes etc. these types of reasoning are excluded from English dynamics. We want to emphasize an affirmation of the student's identity. Indeed, the latter who cannot express his personality through his clothes will work on his personality and his attitude. There would be a desertion of the judgment on appearance for a deeper consideration of what the individual is strictly speaking. However, such an argument raises many criticisms. Indeed, it would be both to think that children cannot think beyond appearances and are subject to them. Confronting them therefore with the idea that the habit does not make the monk would put him in a more realistic dynamic. Because if the uniform reigns at school, what attitude to adopt once the student has left school and finds himself mixed with different social styles? Moreover, such an argument denies the preponderant role of sartorial affirmation in the constitution of the child's identity. We deny any role to what individuals wear in the constitution of their identity, but therefore, why impose an outfit if it has no role on the personality? It would still be a form of hypocrisy to reject any type of influence of the outfit, whether a negative or beneficial influence, on the character of the children.

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Thus, we observe much more wearing of the uniform in strict and demanding societies, in particular towards its youth. Japan was one of the emblematic examples of this requirement towards youth. Japanese youth destined to become a body of future workers, the children are disciplined and trained with firmness (sometimes excessively) in a real school competition. Wearing a uniform, which has become compulsory in most primary and secondary establishments, which have been westernized in recent years, continues to convey a military dynamic in the schooling of Japanese children. The girls wear the uniform called sailor fuku (which looks like a sailor's outfit with a marinière in particular) and the boys wear the outfit called gakuran. Many accessories are authoritative in the outfit of the students such as the loose socks and the randoseru (uniform satchel for each student). Asian societies defend a strong value of community, which takes precedence over the value of individuality. The child is placed at the service of his country, his community and his family. He finds himself part of a whole that he must make work. The uniform dresses him in such a way that he feels part of the whole thing.

In conclusion of this first part, it was a question of showing the importance of the uniform in the feeling of belonging to a group: that it is a national group of the Japanese type which makes feel that the pupil belongs to his country and must serve it, whether it is in a school and a policy, as in the case of the British uniform, or even in a more modest way, that the uniform makes one feel the belonging to a social or religious category, like the clothing of the prefect or the outfits of Malaysian Muslims. The uniform, whether for better or for worse, enrolls children in a community dynamic, it encompasses a part in a whole that goes beyond it. It is necessary, instead of rejecting or accepting the argument of belonging, to question rather: to what do I want to belong? Can everyone belong to a whole? Does belonging to the country mean no longer belonging? How do I reconcile my personality and my belonging?

The uniform as a promotion of discipline and the fight against socio-economic inequalities

Wearing the uniform creates a real sense of belonging to the school and a feeling of pride. Students become ambassadors for their schools.

Indeed, one of the arguments for wearing a uniform amounts to emphasizing that when the student wears the crest or the colors of his school, he behaves with more discipline. Outside, by wearing his uniform, he has the impression of representing his school and therefore measures his actions according to what people will then think of his school. The uniform would be a kind of safeguard, but also a source of pride for the student. This joins the idea that the control of the body by the uniform results in a control of the personality and the attitude of the child. The influence of the school would be such that the child would have the weight of the honor of his school. In children's literature, we find this idea of ​​discipline of a group by its membership. On the Anglo-Saxon model, JK Rowling offers us the description of a school in which the pupils are arranged by personality in certain houses (the four houses of Hogwarts). Each house has its own emblem, its own color and its own codes. The teachers can assign points to the houses by referring to the behavior of the pupils. The pupils must thus behave in a correct way, have good grades, or be good at sports, etc. These behaviors highlighted, thus make it possible to bring back points to their community. It is this same idea of ​​representing and honoring one's house that we find in the arguments of those who defend the wearing of the uniform. The uniform appears as an outfit in which one may or may not commit certain acts for the sake of the school. In countries where the uniform does not exist, or is very rare, as in Germany, the behavior of children is never intended as representative of the school in which they are enrolled. However, during school outings, teachers constantly remind students that they represent their schools. Which representation is made more sensitive by the uniforms? Can the argument of teachers in countries without uniforms still work? Do students necessarily have to represent their schools, disappear behind them?

These are so many questions that allow us to examine the role of the uniform from a disciplinary point of view. If we take countries in Asia or Southeast Asia like Japan or Malaysia, we can see that the wearing of uniforms is part of a larger policy of discipline. The students are, in these examples, controlled. A power is exercised to introduce a certain discipline in the students. In Japan, the randoseru are all hung on the hook of their classroom table, the students take part in tidying up the class, the role of the prefects is preponderant, there is a real unity in the class in which the students are interdependent. But in Anglo-Saxon countries, can we speak of a disciplinary will? Being one of the countries that claim strong individual rights and freedoms, can we think that the uniform tends to create membership in a group, the interdependence of students among themselves, with the social body? This means that there are different levels of disciplines. We can go from enlisting youth in a totalitarian political doctrine in the fascist way, or opting for the creation of interdependence between students, or even for the feeling of belonging to a school group as in England. This argument in favor of wearing a uniform for student discipline should not be separated from a more global vision of society, and the will of the State in relation to its youth.

Indeed, wearing a uniform can have a truly beneficial action in that it promotes pupils in a group but also recognizes their qualities. We see the example of this in Australia or New Zealand where the pupils who occupy the role of prefect see themselves dressed in another type of outfit. If in fact, young people are inspired by others, their styles of dress and take as an example what they like or what is put forward by society, distinguishing certain people by a different style of dress from the group allows students to tend towards this model. The prefects and prefects being those who are dressed differently, they attract the lust of the students and push them to imitate them.

An objection, already palpable in our first part, opposed the world of work to that of school. The children, locked up in their bubble, all identical, all seeming to be alike, thrown into the world of work would no longer be able to grasp the differences in cultures and styles that present themselves to them. The sanitized world of school would not give a true picture of what life will be like after school. To deal with this kind of change, New Zealand authorizes the last years to wear civilian clothes, to prepare them for the world of work, a sign that the uniform cuts children off from another reality.

Speaking of other realities, the uniform comes to cover the socio-economic inequalities of the different students. Another argument for wearing a uniform, it can be deformed into an idealized and deceptive dream of a lying society. Xavier Darcos recalled in 2003 that “dresses which signal the social origins of pupils do not correspond to the spirit of a class where everyone must be respectful of others”. The argument is ambiguous. At the same time, we advocate respect for others, and therefore the need to wear the uniform to inspire respect from all towards all. And at the same time, we introduce the idea that we cannot respect the other if he is different. To meditate. This concerned France, but we can find this same idea in the United States. From 1997 to the 2000s, the percentage of wearing a uniform in public schools increased from 3 to 21% (according to the National Association of Elementary School Principals). In the District of Southern California, the uniform is mandated in all elementary schools and middle schools to combat gang membership clothing. We see the will of the district to erase the belonging of the child in the midst of which he comes, as if the school were an outside place, cut off from the real world in which the child became another like everyone else. It is the same idea conveyed by the notion of secularism, it prohibits students from wearing signs showing any religious affiliation (a trend found in France, for example). These prohibitions are intended to include all students, as if all were neutral agents. We are talking about another way of socialization, where students would define themselves by something other than their social and family determinations.

In the same idea, the uniform tends to erase economic inequalities. There is the argument that uniforms would be cheaper and, as we said, prevent children from falling into the reign of appearances and the war of brands. The price of uniforms varies greatly from country to country, from school to school within the same country as well. In the United Kingdom, there is a difference ranging from 250 to 400 euros (372 for a schoolboy and 280 for a primary school child according to France 2, 300 pounds sterling on average according to the blog “Scolarité en Angleterre” i.e. approximately 337 euros). The choice of school also goes with its cost, the sorting of the different economic classes is already done in the choice of school, which lessens the differences in the schools themselves, then hidden under the uniforms. However, in the UK, it is noted that pupils who show up with cheap or second-hand uniforms are shunned by others. Again, we remember Draco Malfoy's remark to Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: “A redhead, and a second-hand dress, you can only be a Weasley”. It would be wrong to say that uniforms mask all economic differences. However, students turn away from it more easily than if there were a real brand war. In Israel, if the uniform was very present when it was created, it has fallen into disuse to increase in recent years, an argument: the fight against the gap that is widening between the children of rich families and the children of poor families. Israel is gradually putting the uniform back into circulation in an effort to tarnish the apparent economic differences in the clothing worn by the students. The uniforms are guaranteed at low prices so that everyone can have access to them.

To conclude this second part, the argument according to which uniforms erase socio-economic differences is a double-edged sword: indeed, this would allow better integration of all layers of society and another way of socialization, but in the same time, this hides the multiculturalism of contemporary societies, often in favor of the majorities. There is an ambiguity between the promotion of equality and the desire to make difference disappear. That said, in all forms of assimilation-integration, there is the will to erase the different, to digest it to produce the similar. The question being to know what similar to produce? Can we produce a similar respectful of all differences? How can differences exist after that?

The challenges of wearing the uniform: between hypersexualization of youth and gender equality

Is the uniform an archaic educational tool? Would it be a shameful object of propaganda in our time? Would it be the way to control the body and mind of future citizens? The uniform appears in the mouths of its fiercest opponents as an archaic object of domination of the body of children, of the social body and, moreover, of the body of women.

Gender equality, gender abandonment and trans identity

One of the problems of wearing the uniform in Western and liberal societies is equality between the sexes and the trivialized sexism that it conveys. Uniform wear arbitrarily assigns “girls outfits” and “boys outfits”. Several historical and current examples can support this idea. In the 1970s, for example, in Italy, the grembiule was introduced, a garment that hid the bodies of girls so that they did not disturb the boys in mixed schools. Nothing is more topical than this issue. Wearing a uniform would therefore subjugate, crush and hide the bodies of children. It is no longer a question of discipline and order, but of a feeling of shame on the part of a part of the population of the school towards their own sex. This banishment of girls in Italian schools was criticized by the sexual revolution of the 1960s and then ended up being abolished. But the argument according to which a neckline, a skirt or a dress disturbs boys at school, from college (twelve years!) still exists and girls can find themselves threatened by the establishment of regulatory dress. In the same vein, nowadays in Malaysia, boys are not allowed to have long hair. Long hair would be a mark of femininity reserved for women. Here again, we establish something that must be “feminine” and something “masculine”. However, if the girls alone have the right to have long hair, they must tie it up. The authorization given to the girls is immediately checked by the authorities.

Some countries like Canada, taking gender issues into account, have allowed girls to wear pants. Thus, the girls were able to get out of the bondage of the skirt, so prevalent in many countries (UK, Japan, gyobock in South Korea). But if the trend is towards the liberation of the female body, the feminization of her body, why aren't men allowed to wear skirts, pants, dresses, like women? He has a tendency to make woman look like man, but not the other way around. The wearing of the uniform ends up transforming all youth into youth of masculine appearance and ultimately does not make it possible to respond to the great issues of our time on the sexualization of the female body or on the pseudo-disorder it causes. in the male gender.

Even more so in our time, the claims of non-binarity or transidentity come to discuss uniforms and a-prioris. If there are “women's outfits” and “men's outfits”, how should I dress if I don't belong to either category? The issue of identity through the wearing of clothes is becoming more and more important in a society that claims to go beyond old categories. Dressing people in such and such a way would be tantamount to wanting to put her in a category to which she does not think she belongs. However, once again, the appearance can become harmful and guide people to judge only by their appearance, to understand the other only by their appearance, finally, not to understand them. When we see the importance of the body, of the possession and understanding of it by youth and the importance of its appearance, we find ourselves at an impasse to impose a certain dress, and consequently, a certain attitude, a certain order, a certain direction to the youth. But what if the lawyer came in flip-flops, the doctor in three-pieces, the firefighter in sandals or the professor in pajamas? Aren't there outfits for every location where actors have an appropriate role to play? Would refusing the costume be refusing his role?

The sexualization of the uniform

A second problem, just as problematic as the problem of gender, appears with the Italian grembiule. It is about the sexualization of bodies. The body must be disguised because it is sexualized by part of the population. However, far from calming the hypersexualization – especially of the female body – the uniform creates perverse fantasies around this outfit. We see the appearance of night clubs in the United Kingdom around the theme of the uniform. Adults don these youthful outfits and meet in the evening. The uniform takes on a sexual appeal that surrounds young girls and boys with the fantasies of the older ones and becomes the target of pedo-criminal crimes. We find the same idea with Japanese idols, groups of girls or boys (from 6 to 18 years old) who sing pop. Often dressed like children, or like schoolchildren, they create a fantasy around the child and the student. The body of these is put forward, used as a marketing product to stir up the perversity of certain male fans of Japanese idols. The schoolgirl outfit of the Japanese is sexualized and also becomes an object of fantasy.

It is therefore appropriate to question all the issues of wearing the uniform in the light of these contemporary issues: the standardization of a group which in our time wants to be more and more special and individualistic, the disciplinarization of a generation undergoing the perversions of the older generation, socio-economic inequalities masked in the hope of being stifled and lied to, cultural differences erased in the hope of being eradicated. The wearing of uniform is part of a global policy whose dynamics should be understood before judging the wearing of uniform in one country or another. But if the uniform has certain advantages of discipline, it appears as the perverse desire of an adult age greedy for the control of children's bodies.