Forum - View topicAnswerman - What's With All The School Uniforms In Anime? [2019-04-03]
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10004 Location: Virginia |
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Sakagami Tomoyo wrote:
I'm going to have to assume that "jumper" doesn't mean the same thing in Australia as it does in the U.S. (at least the part I grew up in). Here a jumper is a form of dress and taking it off would be very inappropriate in school. (google jumper dress) I think the absence of school uniforms in the U.S. stems from the fact that universal schooling was started when the country is still very agricultural and many children had very few sets of clothing. Basically you went to school in what your wore everyday. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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I think you may be drawing the wrong conclusion here. On the one hand, yes: kids will be kids and tend to make fun of nearly everything, and that includes each other. So of course kids will get teased and perhaps even bullied regarding their fashion choices (any whatever else as well). That said, it is generally lighthearted and it doesn't actually hinder most peoples "expression".
I wouldn't trust what the news says about anything in any country. The news's job is to leverage senationalism to sell advertising. It is not a trustworthy source of information. And uniforms or not, teasing still happens. My schools did not require uniforms. Many of my friends attended schools that did. It was pretty much the same story in both cases. I suppose that my schools might have included bullying over what students wear and that happened to a lesser degree at a school with uniforms, but that's only one of a million reasons. In the uniform-requiring schools there was still 999,999 other reasons why a student might make fun of another.
One of my good friends taught in the JET program roughly 20 years ago. She was stationed towards the northern part of Japan, and she would frequently complain that the school uniform (which she also was also required to wear) was FAR from adequate for the weather, and many of the students at the school asked her if it was the same thing in the US. That said, I'm sure the problem could have been addressed by changing the uniform, and a single anecdote doesn't mean it is a real widespread problem, but I can certainly see how it could be in some cases. |
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Steve Minecraft
 Posts: 120 |
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I just assume it's because America has a poor schooling system compared to elsewhere in the world and can't really afford to do uniforms in every public school. That's why you usually only see uniforms at private schools. |
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I_Drive_DSM
 Posts: 217 |
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A lot of public schools in the United States are still exceptionally underfunded. For an example, there are two very large school districts in my state that STILL - yes, in 2019 - receive state budgeted desegregation money (I live in the South) and they actually rely heavily on desegregation money to just perform basic functions. Public schools simply do not have the budget to supply uniforms to all their children. On the flip side though regulating uniforms can be difficult because many families in public school systems that are either rural or inner city cannot afford them. Thus when a public district does decided to implement uniforms it requires a very loose set of uniform rules (ex: allow two or three top colors with no insignia) to ensure everyone has the ability to follow them.
As someone who worked in, and attended, the public school system in the US I am actually all-for some sort of uniform policy throughout US school systems up to high school. Any arguments of individuality aside which are a warranted idea, a uniform policy minimizes distractions and possible bullying. Not every parent can afford to buy their middle school student Ralph Lauren everything, and children now more than ever are quite impressionable on fashion and brands. I'm certain many will disagree with me, but as someone who has taught in public school it's how I feel. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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I'm a bit surprised no one has mentioned Kill la Kill in this context. Screenwriter Nakashima Kazuki clearly sees school uniforms as a form of regimentation with fascistic undertones.
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Steve Minecraft
Posts: 120 |
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Pretty sure he just has a fetish for school uniforms. He also wrote Kamen Rider Fourze, which has similar sexualized school uniforms. I doubt he was making a political statement outside of "they're hot" 
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2365 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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There are some schools here in the US that have started to bring back school uniforms to the curriculum. Both my Elementary/Middle school and Highschool have instituted the uniform system in order to curb continued violations to the regular dress codes; they're both just a plain (school)colored shirt and khakis, gender neutral. This all occurred years after I graduated though so I never experienced this personally, but looking back I think the uniforms would have helped many self conscious students from struggling on how to dress without having to adhere to ever changing fashion trends. Certainly could have saved me from that stupid wallet chain.
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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I don't disagree with you about the problems with American schools, but money is certainly not the problem. Rather it's how the money is spent. If you look at data regarding school expenditures per student worldwide, the USA is very high on that list, but the rankings on academic performance are far far worse. The USA does not need to spend more money on schools. Rather, it needs to waste less of it on bureaucracy within the school system. Administrative costs are out of control in US schools, plain and simple. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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I don't have a problem with uniforms, and I agree with you that they'd eliminate some bullying opportunities. I don't think that there's much of a benefit in the end though, kids might not bully each other about clothes anymore, but that doesn't mean they won't bully each other over a bazillion other things: height, weight, grades, acne, gaffes, academic performance, sports performance, accents, habits, their taste in music/movies/games, etc, etc, etc. It's a drop in the bucket in the fight against bullying. Want to stop bullying? Institute more adult supervision to stop it when it happens. Taking away one bullying opportunity when there are still so many others isn't going to achieve anything, in my opinion. |
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Chazer
Posts: 19 |
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The usage of uniform in education is not necessarily an issue of striping away a sense of self or original thought, but in many ways it is about protecting students that come from less well off families and make them feel comfortable in the school environment.
If you think of places like the UK or Japan in early 20th century, there was still a very inherent class disparity and uniforms helped solve the potential problem of being judged by your appearance by making it a non-issue. This is one of the reasons Catholic schools tend to be very strict about wearing uniforms, as many of their students may have subsidized tuition based on the family struggles with income. I went to schools that had said uniforms, and the only problem I had with one of them was just how hideous it looked... wearing a Dijon mustard yellow jacket was not exactly my cup of tea. And this was in Mexico City. |
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#hiros7039
Posts: 31 |
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Seems like this question had been answered before if not wondering it took until 2019 to answer this being a common cultural anime trope. Similarly, it was three years ago being asked why many anime take place in a high school.
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Ojamajo LimePie
 Posts: 772 |
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It's the same thing as an American 'sweater', a knitted shirt worn as outerwear. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1222 |
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Very interesting to know that the Japanese were inspired by other countries clothing and now they're a part of their pop culture. I think the first highschool anime I watched were Sailor Moon and Ranma 1/2, but Sailor Moon was the one which introduced me to the concept of Sailor Fuku, alongside Sakura from Street Fighter Alpha 2. Those uniforms were so different from the ones students in my country wore.
To be honest, I find it weird when people from USA complain about school uniforms, where I'm from, public elementary students have to wear a simple, though a bit oversized, white shirt called "Guardapolvo", it's almost like a lab coat. In highschool some schools don't follow a strict dress code, while others make students wear a red polo shirt and jeans, for both male and female students. Private schools, on the other hand, are more similar, like the article said about Japan, to European private schools. Also, the uniforms are not provided by the schools, the parents must buy them for their children. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 943 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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"Sweater" or maybe "pullover" is American for what I mean. (Gods, American English drives me nuts. I guess I'm lucky I don't need to talk here about what you'd call flip-flops...)
I remain unconvinced of that. It might not hinder everyone's "expression" to the point where they remain unable to express themselves after schooling, but neither does a uniform actually hinder it that much. It may amaze some Americans to know that in countries such as mine where basically all schools have uniforms, people still manage to dress how they like in a very wide variety of styles once they're out of school.
Sure. But just because there's a lot of other problems doesn't mean you shouldn't deal with one of them.
I'm not saying you don't get the occasional case like that, but for the most part environmental appropriateness is accounted for. |
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Scalfin
Posts: 249 |
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America's schools are incredibly well funded (and average in quality, but Americans don't like being average or not getting their money's worth) and most school uniforms around the world appear to be charged to the students (although it doesn't make much difference in private school cultures like Japan). I'd say a larger factor is how and why the schools were founded. Most nations with uniforms as a norm started their schools with the motive of indoctrinating children. English (and thereby Commonwealth) schools were founded by religious orders (apart from the military academies) and so wanted to pump out good little Christians (and were often offshoots of monasteries, in which destruction or the individual is the norm). Other countries, like Japan and the Soviet Union, were trying to both build a militaristic loyalty to a central national government and "modernize." An overlapping subset was trying to create a homogeneous cultural identity and language, with France trying to institute the language and culture of the Île-de-France, Russia trying to complete Russification with its gymnasiums, colonial empires trying to "civilize" the locals (with an extra dose of the schools being parochial), and Japan trying to unify itself and bring the whole archipelago into the fold of Honshu's Edo. America's schools, especially secondary, were started as a service for the students, either prep schools for the rich to help their kids to get into colleges or public high schools meant to give the nation's children the skills needed to have a decent quality of life and perform civic duties. The same can be said of other nations that saw themselves as multiethnic, such as Austria (which has had schools as a source of national pride for centuries), Hungary, and Poland-Lithuania, haven't historically used uniforms in schools, either. That list brings us to what is probably the most important reason, though: Most Americans came over from Central Europe (e.g. Poland-Lithuania, Austria, Prussia, and Hungary), and GUESS WHERE UNIFORMS HAVE NEVER BEEN A THING! |
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