truly_trussed wrote:Face it, school uniforms are popular long after the students graduate. I've seen restaurants have "Back to School Night" where the female servers wear Catholic high school uniforms with the short skirts and high socks. Some Hooters restaurants have those theme nights.
After graduation some savvy students keep the uniforms for RP and Cosplay as adults.
The “School Disco” clubbing phenomenon was big a few years ago. Does anyone remember the website
http://www.schooldisco.com ? It’s now defunct.
Up until about 2006 High School Catholic Girls in Toronto wore kilts as part of the uniform. They're not mandatory anymore but I still saw a few brave girls wearing them on my last visit. I did notice one time a girl put all her textbooks under one arm and used her other hand to push her skirt to cover her panties as she rode the up escalator in a Toronto Subway station. I don't think they were allowed to wear pants even on the coldest Toronto winter days.
It makes me chuckle the way you Canadians and USians carry on about Catholic Schoolgirls :o)
In my corner of the world, the majority of ALL girls wear uniform kilts (though we call them tartan skirts). Yes, that included me, and yes they were compulsory.
Drawscore, I agree with most of what you say… but for two things.
drawscore wrote:I can see a strictly enforced dress or uniform code in inner city schools, where kids have been beat up, or even killed…
One of the advantages of the Australian system is that school uniforms are almost universal. So whether you agree with them or not, everyone is in the same boater, so to speak. (Bad pun… sorry. Only the kids in a few private schools wear boaters.)
I am assuming that uniforms are more popular in private schools in the US and Canada, but as for public schools… If uniforms were only introduced into “problem” schools, then they will quickly become associated with bad schools and thus bad kids. Children will be stigmatized by what they wear, which contradicts one of the best arguments FOR uniforms, that they reduce class divisions and prejudices.
The ones that do not understand this, follow and enforce the dictates of political correctness to the letter, and give no leeway to common sense, or even intelligence.
I wish people would avoid using the term “political correctness”, which has become a meaningless term of abuse. After all, one can cite “politically correct” arguments in favour of uniforms and dress codes, “politically correct” arguments against them, “politically incorrect” arguments for and against them. In other words, I hear constantly that school uniforms are both “politically correct” AND “politically incorrect.”
There are serious arguments, as well as fatuous arguments, but each should be evaluated on its own merits, not according to some nebulous, overused phrase which holds no valuable information content.
End of gripe:o)
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.