Obligatorisk Skoluniform : Varför inte i Sverige?

The aim of this study is to quantify principals' professional opinion on school uniform. Qualitative interviews were conducted with five primary school principals to ascertain what they consider the phrase 'school uniform' to imply. The principals' arguements for and against scool uniform were investigated, in addition to how they gauged the importance of the discussion of school uniform. The qualitative data collected was subjected to a discourse analysis, in order to identify the principals' implicit motivations. The results of this study show that the principals interviewed did not consider school uniform to be a particularly hot topic, and none of them had previously read any research regarding school uniform. All of the principals mentioned the fact that a school uniform infringes on children's rights, namely their freedom of expression. None of the principals mentioned arguments for school uniform on the grounds of improved discipline, grades or attendance but rather mentioned the possibility that school uniform might 'level the playing field' with regard to children's clothing. This indicates that Swedish principals do not experience issues regarding poor discipline, grades or attendance to the degree that potential resolutions have been researched. Instead the issues that the principals experience pertain to differences in children's socioeconomic backgrounds, and the challenges this encompases; as such the principals were more interested in potential resolutions so such issues. That being said, none of the principals interviewed actually believed that school uniform would resolve the differences between children from different socioeconomic classes