The Challenges Of Mandating School Uniforms In The Public Schools

The Challenges of Mandating School Uniforms in the Public Schools: Free Speech, Research, and Policy explores the policy rationale, the constitutional rights of students, and the research on the impact of school uniforms.

This book provides an antidote to the ungrounded, anecdotal components that define the contemporary conversation regarding policies of standardized dress in American K-12 districts and schools. The contributing authors draw upon years of educational teaching and administrative experience and research directed at objectively and empirically understanding the issue of school uniform policies at two focal levels of schooling: elementary and middle.

Student Dress Codes and the First Amendment: Legal Challenges and Policy Issues explores the legal issues that arise when a school prohibits various types of student attire. Administrators must respect a student’s constitutional right to free speech, yet still maintain an environment that is conducive to learning, thus often creating conflicts.

Since the 1960s, school rules and regulations concerning apparel and hair have been the subject of litigation in the federal courts. Most of this litigation involves students’ assertions that their clothing and hairstyle choices are forms of expression that are protected by the First Amendment. In some cases, students have argued that school dress and grooming codes discriminate against them based on their gender or their racial or ethnic identity. I Got Dress Coded explores court cases, policies, and research on student appearance and dress codes. The impact of Constitutional protections of student speech on sexual orientation, politics, weapons, drugs, and alcohol are explored as well as restrictions targeting female students and prohibitions on student appearance that reflects a student’s racial and ethnic heritage.

This book represents the most thorough exposition on our present understanding of the impetuses, debates, legalities, and effectiveness of school uniform policies that have rapidly entered the discourse of school reform in the United States. In it, David Brunsma provides an antidote to the ungrounded, anecdotal components that define the contemporary conversation regarding policies of standardized dress in American K-12 districts and schools.

Through a variety of archival documents, artefacts, illustrations, and references to primary and secondary literature, On the Job explores the changing styles, business practices, and lived experiences of the people who make, sell, and wear service-industry uniforms in the United States. It highlights how the uniform business is distinct from the fashion business, including how manufacturing developed outside of the typical fashion hubs such as New York City; and gives attention to the ways that various types of employers (small business, corporate, government and others) differ in their ambitions and regulations surrounding uniforms. On the Job sheds new light on an understudied yet important field of dress and clothing within everyday life, and is an essential addition to any fashion historian's library, appealing to all those interested in material culture, the service industry, heritage and history.

The debate surrounding the effectiveness of school-uniform policies, as well as discussions concerning when and how to implement them, is rooted in anecdote. This review summarizes anecdotal literature on which the current debate is based and critically reviews the empirical literature, including theoretical underpinnings, findings, and suggestions. The anecdote-based literature relies on attitudes, personal experience, and hearsay, ignoring available research. Empirical literature includes small-scale studies of effects, such as case studies of schools that implemented mandatory school-uniform policies, and large-scale studies that compare nationally representative samples of students enrolled in schools implementing uniform policies with students enrolled in schools not implementing such policies on a variety of outcomes. Many methods used are flawed because different factors are not accounted for, such as design of uniform policies in different schools studies, and racial and socioeconomic status. Still, results of qualitative studies lay the groundwork for creating theories on uniform policy effectiveness and defining related issues requiring further research. These results will direct policymakers away from conjecture, emotion, anecdotes, and assumptions. One suggestion is that a uniform policy be part of a larger comprehensive plan that focuses on students' academic success. (Contains 31 endnotes, 14 references, and 18 resource Web sites.) (RT)

This book focuses on preparing for the bargaining table and strategies and approaches for bargaining the contract at the table.