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Sign up for our monthly email alertsThe School Uniform Movement and What It Tells Us about American Education
A Symbolic Crusade
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SUBJECTS
REVIEWS
"A fascinating exploration of the place of uniforms in our schools."
— BOSTON PARENTS' PAPER
DESCRIPTION
The School Uniform Movement and What it Tells Us About American Education: A Symbolic Crusade 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.
Drawing upon years of experience and research directed at objectively and empirically understanding the issue of school uniform policies, Brunsma provides, for the first time:
· a comprehensive history of the issue
· critical evaluation of the extant literature
· reviews of several case studies
· results of nationally representative empirical research
All of this is of the utmost importance for those who wish to be informed and insightful participants in the contemporary debate on school uniform policies.
Educators, parents, concerned community members, and others will gladly welcome such a compilation of present understandings of the crucial empirical, sociological, cultural, political, and legal dimensions of the school uniform debate; it will also appeal to all those who are interested in the politics and critical realities behind the school uniform movement underway in the United States. In the end, the school uniform movement reveals a great deal about the politics, social realities, and highly contested terrain of educational reform and the process of schooling in the United States.
List of Contributors
Todd DeMitchell spent 18 years in the public schools as a teacher, principal, and superintendent before joining the faculty at the University of New Hampshire. He studies the legal mechanisms that impact schools and has authored/co-authored two books, four book chapters, and over 85 articles. He is currently working on a study of professionalism and unionism and he is studying the policy response to Supreme Court cases on student drug testing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David L. Brunsma is an assistant professor of sociology and black studies at the University of Missouri—Columbia.