The Importance Of High School Cliques

“Why fit in when you can stand out?” You have been told this your whole life. But whose responsibility is it to find out where you fit in, yours? Or your peers? Your adolescent years are all about trying to not stand out, and trying just as hard to fit in with the “in crowd.” You use more energy trying to “fit in,” instead of just spending all your energy on being who you really are. A group of friends are suppose to have things in common, but that is hard when everyone is putting up a fake persona. It is the student body’s responsibility to make sure that everyone has a place they can fit in and be themselves. People spend their whole lives trying to “fit in,” while the people who “stand out” are the ones who become something. Think

Jack was a boy who wanted to fit in with everybody in school. It took him awhile to understand that cliques begin in middle school. Realizing that he got labeled as “nerd” for reading books and having glasses, he decided to change his appearance. Jack stated, “I figured if I wore clothes that were more like everyone else’s I could pass for cool, or at least not be made fun of” (Garrod, 2012, p. 180). Along with the wardrobe change, he also convinced his parents to let him use contact lens’ and went to the dentist to fix his yellow patched teeth. Jack noticed how his peers picked on him during school. Even if he thought someone was his friends he knew if he did something they did not approve of, they would turn their back on him. He did not

They come to work sick, they strive to be the best. It goes to show that there can be more than just the 2 groups. Robert describes Jock Culture as a danger to the common good, and a distortion of sports. “It is fueled by greed and desperate competition.” (pg 350) Jock Culture applies the rules of competitive sports to everything. It’s to keep the fear of being known as “feminine” to the others. You want to be known, overall, as the alpha male, or masculine at least.

Middle school was the point in every middle scholar’s life to find a group where they fit in. These groups were called cliques, a group centered around gossiping about others and even gossiping about one another in the group. In middle school this group became your community. The group you do everything with and told everything to. This group is almost like your other family. Sadly, this community, the people you surround yourself with can lead to negative thinking about others. Your community can easily persuade your actions and thoughts because the people you surround yourself with have such a big influence on your life.

In high school people usually fall into "cliques" or certain groups of people they hang around with. College and high school are similar; an example is that if someone plays football tend to spend more time with each other. They usually talk with one another or share a bond which no one else usually has. In high school people tend to do the same thing, kids group up with either the jocks or other groups. People just make friends more easily if they have something in common.

Entering into Saint Francis High School can be a bit nerve racking. There will be so many cliques around campus such as the nerds, jocks, and druggies. Not being able to tell which one you may fit into will make high school more intimidating than it really is. How will you know what cliques are a good idea to join? Is it possible to be stuck between two cliques? For any new high schooler, finding the right group of students is all it might take to get you through those four years.

For example, a student for his/her senior year has been recognized as the MVP (most valuable player). Upon being recognized he has been chosen for a certain amount of money for college/university. Most college/universities (not including community college) cost a lot of money to pay, so the student must do well in school to get the awards and/or sign up for financial aid so that they can pay for tuition (along with a few other things). Jocks know this, and they must play well, as a team, to get the scholarship(s). This develops leadership skills and enhances certain educated factors in the system, if they think about it.

First, high schools do have cliques that unify students by groups. However, that doesn’t mean students confine in the groups they are “assigned” to, as shown in most movies representing cliques. In the movie The Breakfast Club, the five main characters used to represent the school all come from different crowds, which ultimately results in showing how they can still get along even though they don’t necessarily hang out with the same people. The characters are defined as “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.” These labels divide the characters into

Jock Culture has many interpretations of what the meaning really is. According to Robert Lipsyte, the author of Jock Culture, a jock is a winner and does whatever it takes to win. I translated this to mean that even a cheater can be a jock. According to his coach that he wrote about in his article, Bill Stowe, a jock is brave, manly, ambitious, and goal-driven. From my perspective, a jock is a cool, popular, outgoing, and most importantly a winner who abides by the rules. My definition of a jock is more similar to Bill Stowe’s explanation than Robert Lipsyte because I do not consider a cheater to be a consider a jock. Cheaters are not winners.

So what draws students together? What leads to the formation of these social groups- and why don’t they get along? Are these questions the key to finding why some people loved High School, and why others loathed

“Jock” is a term people use in a negative way. People think it’s a person who is athletic that is a bully and really stupid. That is a stereotype! A stereotype could be from your physical traits to how you act and they are based on your ethnicity, sex, etc... Now back to my point about the term “jock” , people have been using it for so long to degrade athletes that they forgot the real meaning of a jock. It is an enthusiast or participant in a specified activity. So how does someone that likes a particular activity become a person that is dumb and bullies?

Every high school has different cliques. There's the popular ones, the athletes, the nerds, etc. One difference between each school is the way they show the cliques. For Abby Warner's school there's "the list". In this "list" it names the prettiest and ugliest girls in school.

The “dumb jock” stereotype we’ve all heard it used before and for some of us have even been called it. However in recent surveys across the United States has found that student-athletes grades are generally higher than

Being in an American school begins a student’s search to find who they are considered in the system. From a nerd to a punk, many academic ties are also involved with this identity. The one group of students who get the most academic ties with his or her extra-curricular activity is the “jock”. As having the title as a jock, a child learns that many people look at someone who plays football or basketball doesn’t have the ability to learn as fast or as well as someone who just studies and doesn’t have extra-curricular activities. Studying this topic is not as stressed as it should be, even when many programs claim to get more physical activity in students. The articles that have been reviewed were testing whether the athlete gets good grades

Does the term “jock” sound familiar by any chance? Most likely, it sure does. This is because the word is commonly thrown around at high school sporting events, in movies, during school lunch breaks, in television shows, and so on. Now, what exactly does this word even mean and why is it so popular? Well, the term is a common way to classify a certain group, mainly in schools. Most would say that the term describes an arrogant high school boy who plays on a varsity sports team, while barely meeting the GPA qualifications, and is dating a popular girl who is most likely the cheer captain. A dictionary, however, affirms that a jock is either “an athlete” or “an enthusiast” (“Jock”). The first definition is more realistic, but why do those characteristics conclude to using the label “jock?”