School Uniforms in a Consumer Society

MATSUDA lria

doi:10.14959/soshioroji.50.1_35

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

学校制服の「生産」と「消費」
学校制服の「生産」と「消費」--ファッション化の経緯および着用の現状
ガッコウセイフクノセイサントショウヒファッションカノケイイオヨビチャクヨウノゲンジョウ
ファッション化の経緯および着用の現状
fashion or‘compensatory mechanism'?

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Description

School uniforms are said to be special both in terms of their production and their consumption. Keeping this uniqueness in mind, this paper will take a brief look at how uniforms have been produced and consumed during the past thirty years, and then try to examine the meaning of the popularity of uniforms among students today. To this end, first I will explore the 'fashionization' of uniforms since the late 1970s. Here fashionization refers to the trend that suits and blazers replaced 'tsume-eri' and 'sailor' uniforms during that period. Although it has often been viewed just as a consequence of catering to the students' (especially female students') tastes, fashionization has also been the result of market restructuring and its subsequent articulation with pedagogical discourse such as 'school identity.'<br>　This short history of the fashionization of uniforms, at a glance, explains why students like uniforms these days. My recent survey of high school students, in effect, shows that over 70% of the respondents think they need uniforms. If we ask them why, we find that students wear uniforms to allay anxieties concerning money and taste. In this sense school uniforms are one of the 'compensatory mechanisms' used to confront a consumer culture wherein one is constantly being asked 'who are you?' and 'what is your identity?'

Journal

SOSHIOROJI

SOSHIOROJI 50 (1), 35-50,168, 2005

SHAKAIGAKU KENKYUKAI