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In France we are discussing school uniforms, that is, a standardized set of clothes to be worn in schools. In 2023, the introduction of uniforms on an experimental basis in schools was desired by President Emmanuel Macron. In the autumn, applications were opened for municipalities that intended to voluntarily participate in the initiative. In mid-January this year Macron shared a map with the municipalities that have joined and announced that, if the results of the trial are positive, the uniform will be introduced everywhere starting from 2026.
Gabriel Attal, the current French Prime Minister who had been Minister of Education starting in July 2023, also declared himself in favor of the proposal. The things but they are not going according to government plans.
The experimentation of the uniform should theoretically start from the next school year in around a hundred schools spread across France. The world wrote that in two of these municipalities the start date of the experiment was even brought forward, but in dozens of others the proposal has so far met with strong resistance from families, teachers or unions. The use of the uniform cannot be introduced without a change in the school regulations, and this in each school depends in turn on a vote of the school councils: it is therefore not a given that it will be approved in all the schools involved in the initiative, and some have actually already rejected it.
The last day to submit voluntary applications was February 15, but the Ministry of Education announced an extension until mid-June, given the low participation and the simultaneous opposition to the initiative even in the schools already selected.
The government has estimated that each kit of uniforms, which can be customized locally by each school, will cost around 200 euros: the cost would not be borne by the families in any case, but shared between the state and local administrations. According to Macron, school uniforms contribute to reducing social inequalities, bullying and increasing the sense of belonging to the school itself and therefore to society.
The new Minister of Education Nicole Belloubet has explained that the experiment launched by the government could be “a way to help students avoid discrimination”. Last year, Brigitte Macron, former teacher and wife of the president, also intervened in the debate. On The Parisian she had said that as a student she too had worn the uniform: «Fifteen years of navy blue skirt and navy blue sweater. And I lived it well. This way the differences are eliminated, you save time – because it takes time to choose how to dress in the morning – and money compared to brands.”
The reasons of those who contest school uniforms are different. In Aubervilliers, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, one of the municipalities that joined the experiment, the local teachers’ unions declared themselves against it, explaining that “it is an ideological measure desired by the mayor” and that “it absolutely does not respond to real needs of schools.” For the unions, the resources allocated to financing uniforms could be used to purchase new textbooks, renovate school buildings or strengthen support for students with disabilities of which there is a shortage in the country.
In Plouisy, in the Côtes-d’Armor department, in Brittany, around a hundred parents, elected officials and teachers organized a protest demonstration under the windows of the town hall at the end of January, denouncing how the candidacy had been dropped from above by the mayor and without consulting all those involved.
In a school in the center of Marseille, the uniform experiment was instead subjected to an online vote via the platform that connects the school community, students and parents: 75 percent of the almost 400 students of the institute took part to consultation and 66 percent he rejected the proposal. Interviewed by The world, many students explained that wearing a uniform meant for them “taking a step back”, going back to the times of their grandparents. Others said that clothes are an important form of personal expression and that uniforms do not really smooth out social differences at school, because these would still emerge from the shoes and various accessories visible even beyond the uniform.
There is not much research on the effects of school clothing on the psychology of young people, they often concern very different contexts and countries, and those that do exist have not reached the same conclusions. A statistically significant investigation was published at the end of the nineties by the American researcher David Brunsma on Journal of Educational Research. Taking into account various parameters (including social origin), the study demonstrated the non-existence of significant effects of the uniform on the academic results, school attendance and behavioral problems of the students.
Another study, conducted by Ohio University researcher Arya Ansari and published in 2021 in the journal Early Childhood Research Quarterly, demonstrated a weaker “sense of belonging to school” among disadvantaged students who wore uniforms compared to those who did not. The hypothesis put forward is that self-affirmation through clothing can contribute to making students feel more at ease in school.
Even the qualitative analyzes that were done did not lead to much, although they did show some problems, sometimes indirect, posed by school clothing. In western India, for example, students declared that the “erasure of social differences” does not occur through the uniform, because these differences are expressed by other details that have nothing to do with the type of clothing replaced by the uniforms , but with hairstyles, shoes, belts and jewellery. The introduction of the school uniform, according to this study, may therefore prove to be even harmful because in reality it reveals precisely those differences that it would like to erase: “In the West Indies”, explained the sociologist Michel Tondellier, author of a book on school uniforms in Martinique (a French overseas department), «you can immediately recognize the poorest children, who wear worn polo shirts, too big or too small».