Files and links (2)
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open
Journal article
School uniforms that hurt: an Australian perspective on gendered mattering
The Australian educational researcher, Vol.51, pp.909-927
14/02/2024
Appears in Recent Faculty of Education Publications
Metrics
12 File views/ downloads
55 Record Views
Abstract
School uniforms are proliferating as a staple in figurations created of successful students around the world. In Australia the uniform as compulsory formal school wear is a growing phenomenon in both public and private education sectors. School uniforms have often been adopted as unproblematic, by schools, parents, policymakers, and students themselves. It remains unclear from the previous limited and often contradictory research, precisely how uniforms materially affect student academic and social outcomes. Research that considers how students themselves not just perceive but feel about their uniforms is scarce. I focus on the affective response of students to their school uniforms at one government co-educational selective science high school. A PhEmaterialist approach deprivileges human agency, accounting for matter as dynamic, affective and of consequence in activities, performances, and events. The school uniform as matter is explored as a dynamic and powerful affective force in education and is situated as an integral part of a school’s iteration of binary gender differentiations. Uniforms matter twofold, as a conception that materializes what matters and the differential affect on the bodies that wear them. Bodies respond affectively to the uniform with a sense of comfort or discomfort, consciously and unconsciously. Bodies that do not fit easily with the required uniform hurt as students undergo everyday activities at school. This paper considers the affect of the uniform, with a filmic response from one high achieving ‘smart’ girl through a fine-grain analysis of her feelings of belonging and dis/comfort with and through her school uniform.
Details
- Title
- School uniforms that hurt: an Australian perspective on gendered mattering
- Creators
- Melissa Joy Wolfe - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- The Australian educational researcher, Vol.51, pp.909-927
- Publisher
- Springer Dordrecht
- Identifiers
- 991013167312102368
- Copyright
- © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article