Australia

@thepixelfox @Zagorath @pineapplelover @dgriffith Playing devil's advocate for a moment, the flipside to all this is that high school kids can be incredibly judgemental when it comes to fashion. Teenaged girls especially, but boys too.

Especially in mixed-income or aspirational middle class areas, you will have parents who will pay up to buy designer labels and Nike/Adidas footwear for their little precious.

Then you have the kids whose parents have more limited means, and who wear hand-me-downs or stuff they get from Kmart or Target.

Immediately, that brings class into the classroom. It says to the working class kids that you are less than.

Having a uniform — ideally one that can be purchased from a discount department store — levels that playing field.

And yes, uniforms are authoritarian. Had you asked me 20 years ago, I'd have wholeheartedly agreed they need to be banished.

What changed my mind was talking to a former neighbour, around 10 years ago, who had been a working class kid raised by a single mum.

She'd originally went to high school at a selective entry school that didn't have a uniform. And she constantly felt left out, and the better off kids whose parents could afford to buy them nicer clothes regularly picked on her.

She eventually changed schools to one that had a set uniform.

So school uniforms can be egalitarian — as long as they're affordable.