BCM212 | Pitch
How does fashion…
- Affect a student’s classroom potential?
- Change one’s perception of themselves to the outside world?
- Influence the potential of friendships and relationships?
- Change the way a student performs academically?
My partner, Chelsea, and I have chosen to investigate the topic of fashion choices in the learning environment. More specifically how does outer appearance affect a students classroom potential in the way they approach University.
Fashion is everywhere. Whether it’s done with intention or in an accidental way – we’re surrounded by it. People actively choose what to wear or what not to wear, to stand out or to blend in, to spend a lot or spend very little on what they wear. Fashion as defined by Entwistle, is a “general term which can be used to refer to any kind of systematic changes run social life, in architecture or even academia: the fashion system as it pertains to dress refers to a particular set of arrangements for the production and distribution of clothing” in which she goes on to say was born out of historical and technological developments in Europe. (Entwistle, J 2000) To speak broadly, young people can use fashion to discover who they are or who they are not. The teenage years, and early twenties have the potential for experimental fashion choices to be made before entering the “real world” and establishing ones self in society. González says, “On the stage of everyday life, the performer declares what he is… to do this, he provides himself with complex equipment ranging from the furniture of his home to his clothes Among all other objects, what fits to our body – the dress and its accessories – has, however, a status“. Fashion in clothing could mean everything to someone, but it could mean absolutely nothing to someone else.
Do students choose to focus on what they wear as to suggest their personality through their fashion, are they dressing to attract relationships and friendships or does practically influence their decision for example by the weather report for the day or how much walking they have to do. We are not going down the path of dress codes and their effects, because our University doesn’t have one for attending students – but investigating perhaps if there is an unspoken “dress code” and what factors contribute to this.
When quickly running some simple Twitter Polls to find out if there would even be a topic to research – we found a bag of mixed responses from our fellow students. The idea of dressing practically was a majority of those who replied with answers, but we had a lot of people sitting on the fence about how much their clothing choices mattered to them.
Our research methodologies will be both qualitative and qualitative, using surveys and questionaries to support our interview focus group. We will be following the guide provided by Rosanna Breen to accurately and appropriately construct our focus group. We are aware of the risk of a focus group research approach as we are in “Covid-19 times’ ‘, as researchers we’ll have to rely on everyone showing, through further investigation we will see if we conduct these groups virtually or in-person. Throughout all it is important to be sure our participants are going to give us what we want.(Breen, R L, 2007) Focus groups will be useful to reveal through interaction the beliefs, attitudes, experiences and feelings of participants, together opposed to if we just do individual interviews alone. (Litosseliti, L 2003) Because this is our approach we will need to revisit our knowledge in ethics to appropriately record our answers. After all this preparation we will carefully instruct questions and surveys for University students who go to campus, particularly those of the BCM212 cohort, to answer and participate in.
Fashion means something to my partner Chelsea and I. I’ve always had an interest in fashion, and how it makes me feel about myself, and how that then projects out to the world. To me, my fashion choices really do matter, particularly if i’m attending a place where I’m given the chance to openly be who I want to be, dress how I want to with like minded people in my classroom. I wanted to participate in this research study to know what my fellow students think, is it similar to my mindset or is it completely different?
References;
– Breen, R.L, 2007, ‘A Practical Guide to Focus-Group Research’, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, vol 30, Issue 3, pp. 463-475
– Entwistle, J 2000, ‘Fashion and the Fleshy Body: Dress as Embodied Practice’, Fashion theory, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–347.
– González, AM, & Bovone, L (des) 2012, Identities Through Fashion: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London
– Litosseliti, L 2003, Using focus groups in research, Continuum, London ; pp 16
swoon 