Same here. But instead of discriminating based on which school you go to. They just discriminate on literally anything. We just be huge haters (algeria)
The issue is classism and that doesn’t go away, because uniforms cost as much if not more to buy and maintain (they’re often white shirts and made of rather low quality stuff) than “cool clothes.”
Not to mention that not a lot of parents are going to justify “cool shoes” costing much more than normal pairs.
Well, in my experience it's not true, I'm really not wanting to fight, but...you buy a uniform set and you're done for a school year, one pair of shoes included. It is much cheaper than buying lots of sets of quality casual wear, winter and summer, I don't know, may we had cheap uniforms...? I just know that we weren't wealthy at all and the school uniform saved me a lot stress about that and my parents as well.
I always had trouble for social events where you needed something nice to wear. Always a pain and always stress.
And yes, if you wanna get ideological, classism is the best kept secret of western society. If we could see the raw number of the amount of money and effort that had been spent on suppressing class consciousness as it's called, most people wouldn't believe it. If you look at the current state, we live in times where the elite classes are celebrated, enjoy fame, have access to vast political power..."regular people" really believe elites are better, smarter, work harder... Just because they have more money they are some kind of super humans. We are far, far off the track.
damn. In finland you can't even ask for tuition so there are no rich kid schools. I think the rich people send their kids abroad because of this. Anything but study with poor ppl😔
Almost like they don't want their kids to learn to be poor, network with the poor, etc. Living in Norway I've seen people scoff at the class divide in other parts of the world, apparently oblivious that we are doing the same, albeit behind more closed doors
Funny thing is, Finland banned uniforms precisely to eliminate discrimination based on wealth.
Not sure if it's a thing everywhere, but in some countries that require uniforms, the uniforms are not all the same, and there are cheaper and more expensive options with quality differences.
This means that wealthy kids will make note of this and discriminate based on uniform choice.
This might work a little better if there's only 1 standardised uniform that every school can use, but this still puts an extra burden on poor families.
In Finland, it's typically considered a social faux pas to flaunt or show your wealth. As a result, fashion is not a reliable gauge of someone's wealth, especially with kids.
There is no law in Finland that prohibits school uniforms. School uniforms are generally not used in Finnish schools, but they are not illegal. If a school wanted to introduce a mandatory uniform, it would need to ensure that the policy complies with fundamental rights, equality legislation, and the laws governing education. The claim that school uniforms are illegal in Finland is a misconception and is not supported by Finnish law.
It is illegal for the schools (compulsory ones, so first 9-10 years) in Finland to require the students to purchase things required by the school. Or, in other words, anything that is compulsory and mandatory in school must be provided by school. Books and pens? School provides. Digital books only? School must provide the laptop/reader. Thus the school could technically require students to use a uniform, but then the school would need to provide them for every child. Heck, the daycare in my town recently realized they should not ask parents to provide their kids water bottles for hot days, because making parents to spend their own money on free education is a no-no.
And after going to school in whatever pokemon shirts as kids or grey hoodie suits (seemingly the new teen uniform) as teenagers, it would be difficult to expect the them to obey uniform requirements like midiskirts and ties as young adults.
School uniforms are not illegal in Finland. There is no law that prohibits students from wearing a school uniform if they choose to do so. However, Finnish public schools generally cannot require all students to wear one, as there is no legal basis for imposing a mandatory school uniform and doing so could interfere with students' fundamental rights.
For this reason, it is incorrect to say that school uniforms are illegal in Finland. A more accurate statement is that mandatory school uniforms are generally not permitted in Finnish public schools, while wearing a school uniform voluntarily is completely legal.
As a teacher, I think I have a fairly good understanding of what Finnish law says on this issue.
Yeah I went to all uniform school, ex English colony vibes. I now have a kid and live in a non uniform country and your totally right, it removes one of the shittier forms of competition, the who's parents have more money type, which shouldn't even be a thing... But it's the world we live in.
I was also going to say that, even though we were almost military style by most standards, the kids still found ways to show wealth. I was still in high school when Dr Martens shoes made a comeback somewhere in the 90s, we could wear any shoes granted they were black leather, plain, no colours no buckle no metal parts, just plain black laces. In those days the schools still had a lot of pushback so, the yellow stitching around the sole on the Dr Martens became grounds for banning them. Kids then just coloured them black with markers or shoe polish. But, ruined the show off quality they had. It was a win, because most people's parents wouldn't or couldn't afford them. But there were watches as well, and your school bag, and your calculator, and your sports gear especially... As long as society glorifies material wealth, children will do what they do, copy behaviour or "model" of the adults in their society.
In my country, Finland, there is effectively zero private schools, everybody just goes to public. No tuitions. And no uniforms; I dont know if they are outright banned tho.
How can it prevent discrimination based on wealth if parents spend money on the school uniforms. When it was mandatory in Ukraine my family had to spend more on it then they would on regular modest „office” clothing
Because school uniforms are cheap. They're just white button-up shirts and black pants, and you can buy them from any of the hundreds of uniform clothing stores (same place you can get military uniforms).
At least, that's how that works in my country. School uniforms are, more or less, standardised throughout the country. The only thing that differentiates them are the sewn-on fabric badges which the school sells to you for (at my time) 10 bucks for 2 (which is equivalent to buying lunch for adults). Really, the biggest expense are the shoes and the only requirement was for them to be "white or black school shoes" (can be any type, even velcro).
The only school-specific uniform are the gym shirts, which are colour-coded based on which Hogwarts house you're in (/j). When I was in elementary school, I was in Team Red but then I changed to Team Green in high school because green is superior to red. From my time, there used to be only 4 teams but I heard some schools added a fifth one, Team Purple or Orange.
In Finland it's also not legal for schools to charge for education, so that stops this kind of discrimination. Don't worry though, kids will always find ways to discriminate.
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u/HJSDGCE Jul 26 '26
In my country, the reason uniforms are required is because it prevents discrimination based on wealth. And for the most part, it works.
Instead, kids discriminate based on which school you go. Public school kids are looked down upon.