This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. PHR is edited by the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) in a partnership with the Association of Schools of Public Health of the European Region (ASPHER)+
In the original article, there was a mistake in
Uniform’s positive, neutral, and negative impacts on education and health outcomes.
| Domain | Positive impact | Neutral impact | Negative impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Educational outcome | Improves classroom management; faster settling to task; reduced distractions | No clear impact on academic achievement | Detracts/distracts from teacher–student rapport; Reduces creativity in population; An extra barrier to socialisation for newcomers/minorities |
| Health outcomes: Physical | Insecticide-treated uniform can provide protection against dengue; Well-designed uniform can protect skin from sun damage; Health and safety can be enhanced in uniform design | Poor uniform policy a barrier to incidental and curriculum based exercise; Poor uniform design a barrier for incidental exercise, especially for girls; Sun protection not considered in policy or garment design; Physical comfort/health not prioritised in design; Health and safety can be misapplied to ban certain non-uniform items | |
| Health outcomes: Psychosocial | Unisex and inclusive design can increase girls’ and overweight students’ confidence to participate in sport; Self-esteem promoted (if student can afford full and correct uniform); Removes competitive dressing pressure; Decreases bullying | Non-inclusive design can reduce girls’ and overweight students’ confidence to participate in sport; Bullying and social exclusion for following uniform rules; Inflexible uniform policy harmful for gender-diverse students |
In the original article, there was an error. “and socio-cultural contexts which inform uniform use” was incorrectly written as “and socio-cultural context in which inform uniform is used.”
A correction has been made to
“Here, evidence has been arranged according to a public health lens of analysis. First, this section examines the proximate educational and health impacts of uniform garments and uniform policy on students to determine whether there are immediate health or education impacts of uniform use or policy. Second, rationales for uniform use are examined, as well as distal factors that influence student experience. This section examines the broader institutional, and socio-cultural contexts which inform uniform use.”
In the original article, there was an error. The word “is” was missing.
A correction has been made to
“Starting with the evidence for the impact of uniform on educational outcomes (the core in
In the original article, there was an error. The word “as” was missing.
A correction has been made to
“Whatever the social context, outward signs of faith can challenge both uniform rules and wider societal values such as secularity in public institutions.”
In the original article, there was an error. The word “has” was missing.
A correction has been made to
“This review has highlighted that uniform has become a proxy for many issues.”
In the original article, there was an error. The word “it” was used in place of the word “if”.
A correction has been made to
“It has also shown that uniform merits public health interest: if uniform use is prevalent, its use impacts on health and educational outcomes, and, importantly, school uniform garments and policies regulating their use are amenable to improvement, with an eye to improving equity.”
In the original article, there was an error. The word “use” was incorrectly placed after the parenthesis.
A correction has been made to
“For instance, the physical impacts of uniform use (e.g., on physical activity of wearers, protection against environmental hazards) were measured using quantitative or qualitative/quantitative mixes of design with larger sample sizes.”
In the original article, there was an error. “has school uniform” was incorrectly included in a sentence.
A correction has been made to
“Yet uniform use has real impacts on health and education, for better and for worse.”
The author apologizes for these errors and states that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.