School uniform: consultation analysis

Method of analysis

The consultation invited open responses to five questions regarding school uniform. These questions were:

• What matters relating to school uniform should be included within the guidance?
• What role does school uniform have in the ethos and culture of schools?
• Are there any particular items of school uniform which are central to the culture and ethos of schools? If so, why?
• What can schools do within their policies to support the aim of reducing costs of school uniform?
• Do you feel these draft principles are appropriate and, if you would change any of them, please set out what your alternative wording would be.

All five questions invited open responses which were initially analysed and grouped together into topics online through the Citizen Hub platform. The topics were then reviewed to identify themes that presented across the body of responses. Responses were categorised for each question into topics and grouped according to the main theme that presented in each response. To ensure consistency across the responses, the themes and topics identified were recorded in a coding framework. This document was updated as the analysis progressed. It is important to note that due to the use of open questions, it was not unusual for responses to contain more than one topic and a response may have been captured under more than one theme. The main topics recorded within the framework have been reported under themes in the sections below related to each question from the consultation. A copy of the coding framework is provided at Annex A.

It is important to note the limitations of this approach and the assumptions present throughout the analytical process. The voice of the respondent, the analyst and the reader interpreting the coding framework are all present. The coding framework was developed based on topics and themes emerging from the responses, and not according to pre-set categories identified by the analyst. The analysis of the responses is limited by the context of the questions and the consultation paper. Care should be taken when using a coding framework that attributes numerical values to qualitative data^[1]. The framework used allows prominent themes to emerge, however, these are not quantifiable in the same way as data gathered from quantitative questions would be.