School Uniform Movement and What It Tells Us about American Education

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.

David L. Brunsma is an assistant professor of sociology and black studies at the University of Missouri—Columbia.