"Dressed for School”: from the museum exhibition to the symposium

As revealed in the research published by R. Shanks et al. (eds.) and A. Campbell Le Guennec and N. Coutant (eds.), school uniform continues to be a hot topic in the 2020s across the world. In France, school uniform is presented as a way of securing the secular nature of school education and reinstating a sense of educational authority. In the UK school uniform is presented as a way to mask income differences by providing a level playing field and thus preventing competition and bullying as well as creating a sense of belonging to the school. The exhibition “Dressed for School” was launched at the French National Museum of Education in June 2023 (until March 2024) and online, as the public debate around secularity and school uniforms was vivid in France. This exhibition and associated edited book (Aude Campbell Le Guennec, Nicolas Coutant (ed.)), presented an interdisciplinary and international project investigating clothing at school from the beginning of the 19th century onwards and comparing it to the UK and other countries where school uniform is the norm. “Dressed for School” gathered lived experiences and contributions from young people, educators and the fashion industry to document and create new ways of thinking about clothing culture at school. Furthermore, this exhibition demonstrated the importance of the work of anthropologists and sociologists to advance the understanding of the mechanisms of uniformisation at school. This research conveys the voice of young people to inform their approach to this dress code and reflects on the ways it is framed by public and school policies as well as on the impact uniforms have on young people and their preparation for adulthood. Evidencing the vital role of museums as the catalysts of public debates, “Dressed for school” garnered a great deal of interest, although unexpected, from the media and policy makers at all levels of government in France. This project echoes the current impact of research and engagement with policy makers in the UK that currently happen, for example, through the work of R. Shanks. An international and interdisciplinary conference is being held to analyse the variety of ways school uniforms and dress codes can be investigated. This conference will provide an opportunity to discuss and debate the multifaceted nature of school clothing, and what is needed to rethink school uniforms and dress codes. Furthermore, heritage and museums will be included in this reflection, to identify the way object-based research and heritage can inform and influence social discourses.