‘It needs to be within the bounds of what is acceptable and required of us’: Governing hair in Queensland high schools

Abstract

This paper analyses how regulations on hair are constructed and justified in the uniform policies of Queensland high schools. Covering Government, Catholic, and Protestant schools, this paper explores how uniform policy across these sectors deploys the rhetoric of community values and appropriate representation, promoting the idea that uniformity is unity. Drawing on an analysis of 50 uniform policies from Queensland schools, I explore how hair is regulated by such policies and what justifications are provided for this regulation. In doing so, I examine the idea of an imagined, idealised student body and how these regulations impact students’ ability to negotiate with gendered, classed, and racialised constructions of community.