Figure 1.--This French-speaking Swiss school required that the boys wear smocks. The boy on the left, however, may not have liked them as he came to school on class photograph day without his smock. I'm not sure about the regulation. The fact that all the other boys wear smocks suggests the rule was strictly enforced.

Switzerland had no national policies on school smocks. These policies were set by the canton school authorities. Smocks were required in the French and Italian cantons and were generally not worn in the German cantons. There were also some mixed cantons where the situatiin was more complicated. Generally the population within these cantons had regional linguistic majorities which would affect the schools. Often these cantons would encourage, but not require smocks in French schools.

Swiss Cantons

There were substantial variations among cantons. Many individual schools, however, did have regulations requiring them. While Switzeland has three linguistic regions (even four with rumantsch), there are 23 different cantons with 23 separate educational regulations. Some older Swiss will refer to 22 cantons. The Swiss decided to create a new canton (French speaking Jura was part of German speaking canton Bern). So there are 23 cantons. Each part of Switzerland is culturally linked to either France, Germany or Italy.

Cantons with Clear Linguistic Majority

Boys in the German cantons did not commonly wear smocks like Ticino (Italian) and Romandie (French) boys who in their cantons more or less has schools with compulsory rules--depending on the canton. Usually this meant that smocks were required for boys of certain ages, but did specify the style or color.

Cantons with Mixed Populations

In some instances it was left to the individual school. Some cantons had schools of different languages. Thus a predominately French caton might have some German schools, thus provision was made for these schools to adopt their own regulations. This was generally the case in larger towns which supported several schools

In the Swiss bilingual cantons such as Fribourg or Bern the population is not mixed up. For example the south would speak French and the north would speak German. The rule is simple: in a village, if the majority speaks French, school is given in french. Only major towns with mix of languages would have a French school and a German school.

Apart from language problem, the rules would be identic for all schools of the cantons and governed by the cultural-lingual majority. In the case of smocks, for example, these would not be compulsory but highly recommended. Or no smock ruling. Let's take example of family XYZ living in German speaking Bern. They are of French origin and speak French at home. Father speaks German at work, mother speaks German when shopping but French with friends, and kids speak German at school, but French during playtime. There is a good chance that they would be wearing smocks like other French speaking kids, but would not be teased for that just because in a bilingual canton there is just a bit more tolerance.

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Created: December 18, 2000
Last updated: December 18, 2000