Talk:Catholic school uniform

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Contents 1 Dress codes in Catholic schools 2 Redundant info 3 Why Catholic? 4 Rules for boys and rules for girls 5 t.A.T.u.

[edit] Dress codes in Catholic schools

I can't agree with the statement that "almost all Catholic schools have dress regulations". Almost all Catholic schools in Austria don't, for starters. I know too little about the worldwide situation to change the text, though... —Nightstallion (?) 12:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The exact statement was: "Nearly all Catholic schools have some form of dress code. . .". A dress code, as the term is used in the United States, can be very rudimentary, requiring "neat appearance", "well groomed", etc. That said, it should be noted that the entire article, in its present form, does appear to be U.S. centered. This is not a conspiracy, just the natural result of the limitations of the knowledge of the contributors (myself included), who are necesssarily limited to what they know. But perhaps it is best if these limitations were stated outright. JFPerry 16:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, schools in Austria, including Catholic private ones, very rarely have written or even informally official dress codes... Maybe we should put the US-centric tag on it? —Nightstallion (?) 18:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I added some UK-specific information which might make this article a little less US-centric. British school pupils are well-known for the wearing of school uniforms throughout the education system. --Mal 22:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redundant info

I have removed this information because it is already covered by the fact that most British schools (Roman Catholic, Church of England, and non-denominational state schools etc) have a uniform policy. There is no need to add the extra information specifically about Church of England schools, unless there is anything particularly notable about how or why CofE schools wear school uniforms. In that case, information should also be added about what is notable about other British schools by way of contrast. --Mal 12:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, uniform codes tend to be much stricter in Church of England schools. Secondly, to the extent that it's a fetish {see Schoolgirl uniform fetish), the religious connotations - implying innocence and virginity - are quite important. Taxwoman 13:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding strictness - wearing correct uniform was pretty strict in my school! You got the cane if you had it wrong (I went to a boys-only school, but the same was true of most non-denomination girls schools and mixed schools). As for innocence and virginity, the very fact that schools have pupils up to a certain age would imply a certain amount of (the age of) innocence and virginity. I would argue though, that there might also be an aspect of 'dirtiness' and rebellion involved in the school uniform fetish.

I'd be happy enough for the CofE to be mentioned in both these relevant articles - I'm sure it has relevence to you... but only if notability can be shown. --Mal 13:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why Catholic?

I've still got my uniform and wear it occasionally. But it was a Church of England school, not a Roman Catholic one. Poetlister 13:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with the sentiment of this. Although I am male, I also went to a school which had a uniform code - it was a state school: neither Roman Catholic nor Church of England. Many other schools throughout the UK and in lots of other countries have a policy of school uniforms.

To that end, I suggest that the phenomenon of "Catholic" school uniform might be particularly unique to the United States - a country where perhaps most non-Catholic schools do not wear uniforms (though many might have dress codes as a substitute), and therefore this article is US-centric. I propose a merger of this article with an article title that is more generic, leaving this article as a disambig page. --Mal 13:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Setanta. In England, this article would apply equally to Catholic and Church of England (and Jewish) schools; I don't think that any other sorts of Christians have state schools. Should the article be re-named "Traditional school uniform"? - Taxwoman 14:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

There is already an article entitled School uniform. Perhaps a merge? JFPerry 15:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with a merge. If there's no objection, I'd suggest it be done within the next few days. Also, bear in mind that the article on Schoolgirl uniform fetish may benefit from any information that has been included in this article. --Mal 06:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Just so there's no confusion. I support the merge (with School uniform). I presume you will be doing the honors. JFPerry 02:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rules for boys and rules for girls

Today, I saw that the part after the semi-colon in this sentence had been removed:

Some schools still require girls to wear skirts, while others have gone to a unisex uniform; schools that allow or require skirts on girls tend to forbid them on boys.

The edit was accompanied by the note "Amusing, but jokes are not encyclopaedic".

I was the one who added that statement about the sexual imbalance, on 19 March 2006. I have since restored the bit about boys; clarified the three options for girls (must wear skirts; may wear skirts; must wear unisex uniform); and removed the temporal aspect ("still require", "have switched"). I made the addition about boys and skirts not as a joke but as a factual item of some importance.

• It is supported by 100% of the school uniform policies I've read. I've read only a tiny fraction of the policies in the world—but 100% of those that I have read have either made no mention whatsoever about skirts on boys (and these policies tend to be along the lines of "If we don't explicitly allow it, we do implicitly forbid it") or explicitly forbidden skirts on boys.
• It's NPOV, because it casts no judgement about whether this is good or bad.
• And it provides balance to the article by following up the description of what girls are allowed or forbidden to wear with a description of what boys are allowed or forbidden to wear.

President Lethe 17:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes, but the statement talks about a "tendency". I am unaware of a single Catholic school here in the United Staetes where boys woud be permitted to wear a skirt. This is hardly a situation which would be described as a mere tendency. Of course, you might be able to find an incident where someone, somewhere did once and didn't get kicked out of school, but that's not the point. JFPerry 14:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

My point in editing the article yesterday was partly to restore a worthwhile statement that had been removed because it was seen as a "joke". My point in yesterday's note was to explain why I edited the article. I don't consider "tend" to imply "merely" or not to imply "merely". The point is that I don't have a source to back up a sweeping, absolute statement: so, all I can do is mention a tendency (and that tendency is supported by all the literature I have read—but that literature has been only for individual schools). The burden on the person considering making a statement about schools forbidding allow skirts on boys isn't to find a single example in which a school allowed a skirt on a boy, and it isn't to find sources that assert that, indeed, every single school with a uniform policy forbids skirts on boys: it's to examine the evidence and draw a conclusion, keeping in mind that the evidence examined may be less than all the evidence available and so conclusions should be worded cautiously. ... Actually, it has just occured to me that maybe you mean that the "joke" was seen in my saying "tend to forbid" instead of simply "forbid". Well, the earlier sentences of this note should clarify why I used "tend". That's all. President Lethe 17:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I've just now questioned myself about whether I would accept a change in wording to "most schools that allow or require skirts on girls forbid them on boys" ("tend to" is gone; "most" has appeared). I would still have reservations about this, simply based on my feeling that I haven't found a hard, external source (just my own experience about individual schools); another reason for my reservation would be that the lack of boys in uniform skirts that I have observed may, in an unknown percentage of cases, be based simply on the boys' preference not to wear skirts rather than on the schools' forbidding them to. ... And Wikipedia is not the place for me to write, in an article, something like "This author has never read a school uniform policys expressly allowing skirts on boys." President Lethe 17:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I've taken a shot at editing the sentence. Despite legends about boys being required to wear a girls' uniform (probably in the imagination of a fetishist), I know of no cross-dressing (no pun intended) in Catholic schools--Gary 17:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Gary has replaced "schools that allow or require skirts on girls tend to forbid them on boys" with "Schools which prescribe seperate uniforms for girls and boys do not permit the uniforms of one gender to be worn by members of the other gender." Gary's edit summary was "I think this is an accurate statement."

Yes, it's accurate. The problem here is that it's a redundant statement of the inherently true. This is like saying "Things that are against the law are illegal." If a school prescribes distinct (I have emphasized those two words separately, though it's not apparent in the final form) uniforms for the two sexes, then obviously it has prescribed distinct uniforms for the two sexes—and, as I've said, the way these uniform policies tend to be, anything that is not explicitly prescribed is implicitly proscribed. The new sentence also again eliminates the neutral highlighting of the gender imbalance: the statement that there are three possibilities for girls remains; but the clear, explicit statement about the single "option" for boys has now been reduced to a redundant statement that just says "If a school has rules that separate the uniforms of the sexes, then it has rules that separate the uniforms of the sexes." I understand that the idea behind Gary's sentence may be to point out the gender imbalance; but the actual sentence, instead of stating it explicitly, just sort of seems to expect that the reader will 'read between the lines' and say "Ohhh. Maybe, in saying that 'separate uniforms means separate uniforms', it's really saying boys aren't allowed to wear what girls are allowed/required to wear." Gary's sentence can be read in a certain way, a way that might reveal to some readers "boys aren't allowed to wear skirts"; but the original statement just made it quite clear—"schools tend to forbid skirts on boys".

Still, I see a change that could be made in my version. Instead of saying "schools that allow or require skirts on girls tend to forbid them on boys", I should just cut it down to "schools tend to forbid skirts on boys"—because the schools that don't allow skirts on girls almost certainly also don't allow them on boys.

Anyway, this is my explanation of why I'm replacing Gary's sentence with a truncated version of what I already had.

In a related vein: does anyone know of sources that would support a change to "many [or most] schools forbid skirts on boys"?

No ill will intended to anyone. :-) President Lethe 19:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

No, that is fine. My concern with "tend to" is that it implies a minority view, Catholic schools that have (or at least permit) boys to wear the girls uniform. Although the dress code (available on at least some school web sites) may not so state, as a practical matter, that is not an available option. Perhaps we could say something along the lines that "Whether by explicit statement in the dress code, or due to social pressures, as a practical matter, wearing the uniform of the opposite sex is not an option." Or else, just leave out the whole thing. Or else (thinking again) say "While most schools require a distinct uniform for each sex, some offer a unisex uniform."--Gary 19:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I think perhaps we should gather others' opinions on their inferences about the word "tend". I don't at all mean to get argumentative with you; but I simply don't see the "minority" implications of "tend". If a car's steering system tends to pull to the right, that means that the steering system pulls to the right more often than it pulls to the left—majority, not minority. Or maybe I'm misreading you. ??? Anyway, my hunch is that Catholic schools that allow or require boys to wear skirts are indeed in the minority. (And people should remember that things like majority and minority are statistical facts, not biased opinions; I'm not saying you have forgotten this, but I've encountered many people who think the word minority is somehow insulting.) It's just that I don't have the sources to go ahead and push the statement all the way to the absolute and say that the minority is so small that it is, in fact, nonexistent.

As to "Whether by explicit statement in the dress code, or due to social pressures, as a practical matter, wearing the uniform of the opposite sex is not an option": I wanted a statement on uniform policies, the things mandated by schools. It seems that issues of social pressure and practical matters are worth including somewhere in the article; but I want a statement on actual policies to be just a statement on actual policies.

"While most schools require a distinct uniform for each sex, some offer a unisex uniform." This, again, is a statement that is accurate but doesn't as clearly convey what I'm trying to convey. It also leaves out the third option: there are schools that essentially give girls the choice of wearing the female or the male uniform—but the same multiple options are not given to the boys. It seems that there are three categories of policies for girls:

- Girls must wear skirts; girls must not wear pants.

- Girls may wear skirts; girls may wear pants.

- Girls must wear pants.

But the "option" I have observed for boys is only a single one:

- Boys must wear pants; boys must not wear skirts.

Yes, there are schools that have a uniform that can be worn by both sexes—but it's always pants and never skirts, and some that do allow the girls the option of wearing the unisex (pants) uniform also allow the girls, but not the boys, the skirt option.

It seems to me that "Some schools require girls to wear skirts, others allow girls the choice of skirts or shorts and pants, and yet others have use unisex uniforms; schools tend to forbid skirts on boys" is a pretty concise and straight-forward way of putting it, presenting the three female options and the one male "option".

Sorry I get so wordy. President Lethe 20:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

About the latest edit to the article, made since my previous post on this Talk page: I'll just let the article sit for now. I have a new idea, but will work on it later. President Lethe 21:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] t.A.T.u.

I think it's fine to mention the duo briefly in this article. Just a few points:

• Obviously, the uniforms that Lena and Yulia sometimes wore were stylized versions of, rather than actual, school uniforms. And, within the confines of stylistic representation, their uniforms may be closer to those worn by girls in American Catholic schools than to somewhat similar uniforms worn elsewhere (e.g., state schools in the U.K.). But do we have a firm source saying that they (or whoever came up with their image) specifically considers their outfits to be based on Catholic school uniforms, instead of just school uniforms? Not arguing; just asking.
• Perhaps, instead of being specific about the video for "Ya Soshla S Uma" ("All the Things She Said"), we should just talk about the general school-uniform style of the outfits that they often wore at performances during a certain period of their career. After all, they wore those uniforms, and variations on them, at a lot more points than just the filming of that one music video.
• Maybe it's worth mentioning, here or in another article, that the reason for which they appeared in the uniforms and exhibited lesbian behaviors was that it was seen as a sexy image that would sell quite well.

President Lethe 20:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

you cant be surious im edditing a page how do i kow if any of this is true.