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schools -- chronology : 20th century -- the 1970s
School Uniform: Chronology: 20th Century--The 1970s
Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified Soviet 3rd grade class in 1970. We see most oif the children weaing a basic iniform. Pinafires werestandard for the girls. Soviet choolshd high cademic stndards, but there was no real freedom of houhht. The teachers taught what he Givernment told them to teach. With cience and math there was no problrem, but the inbility to ctully ccess cocilism as China doing, menty tht the ecinomy began to labguish meaning thatjobs wre not beung crerated abd new industries devekoping foir the takented sciebtustus bd technicuans being trained.
The 1970s was the first decade where most of the children of the world had access to public chool systems. The quality of these schools varied widely, depending to a large degree, but not entirely on funding. this was result if decolonization which had begun to a large extent with African countries in the 1970s. Latin America was little changed with poorly funded public education, even in the more advanced Southerrn Cone continuing to lag behind the rest of the Western world. This was a factor at ll levels including thde politcally ravaged iniversities. America finally completed the desegration of public education. This was part of larger effort to increase opportunities for otther previously disadvantaged minorities, including the disabled and girls. It began an increasing focus on equality and a declining focus on achievement. A major change was underway in Asia with the failure of Mao's Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese began to emphaize scholarship and educatianal stndards which along with mrket reforms (capitlism) begn to reshape the country. The way was ioened fir opricate schools. The same was true in the Asian Tigers which had high academic standards in their schools. European countries comntineto have school systems with high academic standards. Britain largely completed the shift from sdelctive grammar schools to comprehensive schools. Soviet schools maintained high accademic standards with slective schools. The Soviets turned out large numbers of highly trained scientists and engineers, but the country did not benefit because the socilist systems did not create the job opportunities and ecoinomic growth neeed. Notably why the Soviets belieced in selective education. left wing groups in Europe nd neruc opposed it. Public schools existed throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but a mix of Arab Socialism, religuious fanticism, and a focus on destoying Israel meant that countries achieved little economic growth and unless there was an oil resource to exploit there was general poverty. Academic standards in he chools were very poor. Oceania was little chbged. New Zealand lunched an effort to absird many private schools into the state system. We begin to see some Americn primary (elementary) schools adopting uniforms, but most children just wore their regular clothes to school. We see some short pants in primry school, but long pants still dominated. We begin to see the modern trend of pan-Europen school fashions take hold un the 1970s. Until the 70s it was often possible to identify the country with unidentifed school portraits. This began to change in the 1970s European children began to dress alike, especially in Western Europe. The fashions becoming popular were basically casual American styles. Britain was a little different because so many schools had uniforms, especially the private dschools. School uniforms were not common in Western Europe. Japan was largely unchanged. Some primary shools and virtully all secondary school chilren wore uniforms.
The 1980s
