School Uniforms

This edited volume brings together a new materialist approach to understanding the various legacies and controls being exercised through school uniforms. Through examining school uniform policies, the editors and their authors highlight the embodied choices that contribute to a socio-materialist understanding of democracy and social justice. Uniform policy plays a distinct role in setting the culture of compulsory school education and as such it constitutes a set of under-theorised school practices. This work thus brings together critical perspectives from education, sociology, cultural and postcolonial studies within an overarching analysis of how uniform imposes performances that have a formative effect on young people's identities and economic positionality.

Rachel Shanks is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Aberdeen, UK. She has been researching school uniform since 2019 and is particularly interested in how it can be made affordable, comfortable, rights-respecting and sustainable. She leads interdisciplinary courses on sustainability and teaches research methods, in particular qualitative data analysis using software.

Julie Ovington is a Lecturer and Programme Leader in the School of Education and Social Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland, UK. This work follows on from a career in family support within communities and in Nursery and Infant schools.

Beth Cross is a Lecturer in the School of Education and Social Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland, UK. She researches the interface between formal and informal learning contexts and is particularly interested in dialogic methods of exploring learner identities, strategies and trajectories.

Ainsley Carnarvon is a Researcher and Digital Education Strategic Programme Manager at the HMFC Innovation Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland. His work involves creating digital education opportunities for the youth of Edinburgh, with particular focus on BAME , neurodivergent, and other underrepresented groups in STEM.