Ask Lemmy

I was vaguely aware of them being a thing elsewhere as a kid. Back then someone even thought they were cool because of Harry Potter films. Never thought of it as authoritarianism, just pointless.

But now that you say it, placing restrictions to make people look the same is kind of authoritarian.

I think it is. It's a capitalist attempt to break the spirit of the young and get people ready for having to wear uniforms for work.

I think all schools in Brazil have uniform, even private ones. No such thing as "physical education uniform", tho, you sweat on the same shirt you stay in class, so everyone is kind of forced to have 5 fucking uniform shirts and 2-3 pairs of pants and shorts, which makes it feel more like free money extortion rather than anything else.

I don't know enough about school history in my country to really tell whether this is some form of authoritarian bullshit or not, since there was some sort of education reform during the dictatorship (1964-1985) which led to a significant increase in private schools since, as "public school" became synonymous with "shit education", but I wouldn't be surprised if it originated from that line of thought. I mean, schools here operate on assembly line logic, so uniforms make perfect sense.

No.

I absolutely do, within reason and within legal limits, school kids should be able to wear whatever they want as it's a big part of their self expression.

Also, for things like art class, which can and will get very messy, very fast, especially with younger kids, school uniforms are just flat-out impractical vs. wearing old clothes you don't care about, eg. for clay day or for paper mache day or anything else like that, although ideally for stuff like this, you'd provide some old slightly oversized shirts to begin with that can be smudged with paint or clay or whatever without fear, effectively acting as smocks.

My view is the right to dress or undress as one desires is a right of basic human expression so yes I would describe this as a minor form of authoritarianism.

Honestly I kinda liked our school uniforms when I was a kid. Course for us it was just like jeans and a solid color Polo. Maybe khakis were allowed as well, I don't recall. Made things easy made things simple.

No not authoritarian

I agree completely.

Equality is NOT the same as teaching people to be the same as everyone else. From what I understand, the intent is to discourage bullying, because: How can you make fun of someone for their clothes, if you're wearing the same thing? But as soon as they leave school and there is no global dress code, they are pre programmed to consider anything outside the norm as "wrong" or "punishable".

The ONE argument for uniforms I could get behind is that they ensure that the poor kids are dressed just as well as the rich kids, but as far as I know, those uniforms aren't typically provided to the students, and you'd still end up with some kids in designer uniforms, and others in thrift store finds and hand me downs.

Fortunately they didn't start doing uniforms where I was until after I left school. The reasoning our school district used was that income disparity was a form of bullying and kids whose parents couldn't afford designer clothes and shoes should not be constantly exposed to kids whose parents never had to worry about a paycheck as evidenced through their kids. Of course, they also didn't like certain T-shirts (like those featuring bands like Metallica, Megadeth, and Iron Maiden).

It's fine if the school provides the uniforms and offers a subsidy on their care and upkeep (or covers it entirely, like uniforms are traded for clean ones at the end of each week). Less so if the parents have to actually buy them. Because then the problem is being shifted, since the rich kids will have the same uniform but in higher quality. Income disparity can't really be hidden and I don't really think that was the actual goal (though some PTA mom probably brought it up, making it a convenient excuse).

Yes. Even though it has nothing to do with the government. It's also fascist.

Yes, as is a lot if stuff schools do