Professor Dress: Consequences of Cultural
Distance in the Classroom
The dress code of professors, such as it is, is presented in popular culture as
somewhere between semi-formal and aloof Despite temporal variations—from
black robes to business suits, and patched corduroy elbows to black
turtlenecks—there is something approaching a constant: We are led to
understand that academics distinguish themselves as interesting at least partly
through their clothes. Even elementary school faculty are said to have a
particular look, such that “clothes make the teacher” (Weber and Mitchell,
1995:54-71).
The attire of faculty—and particularly how professors dress in the
classroom—has been linked primarily to how they are perceived. But less
research has examined how these variations are reacted to behaviorally. And
indeed, it is (or should be) student behavior rather than perceptions that guide
our choices and, in some instances, policies. This article will review the
literature on attire, summarize data from an initially inadvertent experiment, and
provide concluding thoughts about how the physical materials we don may
offset consequences of the cultural and virtual changes that presently complicate
teaching and learning.
Making Teacher Attire Important
There are increasing concerns about learning outcomes as well as
behavioral problems in schools ranging from bullying to violence. All have been
tied to attire. At the extreme, some “school shootings” have been both explained
and reacted to with variations in attire (Ogle et al., 2002). Meanwhile, school
uniforms have been credited with dramatic reductions in school violence (King,
1998). At far less extremes of student behavior, but to a much greater degree in
both popular and academic attention, behavioral conformity has been sought
through regularity of attire. One way in which some schools, communities, and
cultures have attempted to reign in and normalize student behavior has been
through dress codes. The expectation is that by standardizing student attire,
behavioral differences are both minimized (through a socialization of similarity)
and more easily identified (in the sense that other variation, particularly gangrelated clothing, is minimized). Within limits of case law and common sense,
the expected result is “a better school environment” in all regards (Stover,
1990).
Cross-culturally, there is some evidence that regulating student attire is
associated with behavioral regularity (McVeigh, 1997). A cross-national study
similarly concluded that attire (among other variables) may play an important
part in the organizational culture of educational institutions, independent of local
or national culture (Dedoussis, 2004). However, as one review of the literature