United in uniforms

Classmates: School uniforms can help the student body form a collective identity. Photo provided to Shanghai Star

Looking good

The principal aim of a school uniform is for students to present a neat and tidy appearance, while ensuring they feel comfortable in what they wear, according to Wellington College International Shanghai, a school opened in August 2014 in Pudong New Area. The basic design and colors of the uniform at Wellington in Shanghai is derived from Wellington College in the UK, reflecting the closeness of the relationship between the two schools. "We want them to wear the uniform with pride, illustrating their membership of a highly reputable and successful school," says a representative of the school.

Wallace says wearing uniforms gives the students a sense of identity and belonging. "It would potentially remove the focus on learning and increase their focus on things other than learning. Growing up isn’t easy, and having a uniform means that there is no pressure to look a particular way," says Wallace.

Pressures do exist though. Zhou Mingzhi attended Jinyuan Senior High School in the 1990s. "We used to envy the students of Caoyang No 2 School which was in the same district as ours. Their school had their own design, which was better than ours," says Zhou. She recalls that school uniforms at the vocational schools were different from those of most high schools, too. "So we knew with whom we should make friends at first sight. Children are sometimes very snobbish," says Zhou.

School uniforms –– and school badges –– have always been loaded with meaning.

Jia was born in 1970. She never had a school uniform, but her school had strict regulations on what was acceptable to wear. She entered Shanghai Nan Yang Model School in 1982. Once a boy was ordered to go home and change his trousers by the president because he wore a pair of jeans.

In the early 1980s, jeans, flared trousers, sunglasses with huge lenses and radios with four loudspeakers were seen as symbols of the young people who couldn't find a job, says Jia. "Anything fashionable was connected to laziness."

A school badge was a must for her to go to school. "Maybe the school wanted us to have a sense of identity or pride. Some boys would take the badges off before they did something bad outside school. In this sense, we’d prefer school badges to uniforms," jokes Jia.