School uniforms are dynamic cultural forms and as such have meanings specific to the cultures in which they are worn. In New Zealand the history of their development is also a history of changing meanings specific to the New Zealand culture, connected to the status of children and the changing educational and social objectives of the education system. After a relatively slow development in New Zealand, school uniforms came into their own during the 1950s only to undergo radical change and diversification in the 1960s. During the 1970s school uniform as a practice reached a new extreme, allowing expressions of individualism and pluralism, values associated with a democratic ideal. Although such expressions threatened to overturn the sustaining principles of uniforms and uniformity, instead they reinforced uniforms as carriers and protectors of a powerful democratic ideal embedded in the New Zealand education system.
