ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to shed light on examples of the uniform-wearing student—the embodied young scholar—in the history and present of Australia. This exploration is a cultural history, drawing upon personal and institutional records as well as mass-marketed texts and images (found in sources such as popular fiction, magazines, newspapers and advertising campaigns) in order to further understanding of how Australian society has used school uniforms to posit statements and questions about gendered bodies. The chapter looks at the gendered school dress codes that had formed in Australia by the 1930s and takes them as a springboard for examining subsequent changes to school uniforms in the latter half of the 20th century—when uniform dress became ubiquitous in the nation's public schools—through to the present, with a focus on how Australian culture has represented and interpreted those changes.
