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 Can you be accepted in a different clique? 
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During the last section of the movie there was a female student saying that the "preps" had been together forever. That their parents knew each other, etc. She mentioned that it was impossible to get into that group of people and be accepted.

I find it hard to just think that it is impossible to be accepted in the "prep" group compared to other groups. All groups of students don't accepted people out of their clique. It is a horrible fact but a "prep" could not be completely accepted by another clique such as the "goths."

I guess I see it from all views and that it is not just one clique that is not accepting people from other cliques... it is all cliques.

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Alyse A. Bowden


Tue Feb 06, 2007 4:04 pm
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I agree. Once people get comfortable with a set of friends or group of people they don't like change. That group believes that they are better off than everyone else.
In high school I would have been considered a "Band Geek". But for some reason just because I was in that group I was never approached or talked to by the so called "popular group". At one time I used to try and hang out with that group but I was treated horribly and I never had a true friendship. It bothers me how some people like to think they are better than others just because of how they dress or who they hang out with. As teachers we can not give all of our attention to the so called "in group". I had a history teacher once who gave most if not all her attention to that group. Even some teachers believe that if they are liked by the popular students then they are "cool" teachers.


Wed Feb 07, 2007 3:44 pm
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My high school happened to be drama city. I can literally say that my school corresponded with the movie, "Mean Girls" (except the whole bus running over the girl, lol). My school was based upon cliques. We had preps, gothics, athletes, etc. But we also had a certain clique that I was in. I would have called it "best all around". I had friends of every clique...I am sure not EVERYONE liked me but no certain clique called me a prep or an athlete. But I had friends just like me, someone that everyone could get along with. So it was like a clique itself. Either the majority of the cliques liked you, or they didn't. Sure, I connected with some more than others. But I never gave up that identity I had. It wasn't that I liked being liked or tried to get everyone to like me. There was just some type of thing I liked about every clique. This could get a little dramatic at times. One clique would ask me why I liked certain people of another clique, etc. I would just state my opinion and move on. I did not like to be fake and I guess people liked that about me and my "clique". I wish that people can be more accepted and not belong to any type of clique but you want to be around someone that you are comfortable with. Preps typically don't like gothics, etc.

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Jessie Carrigan


Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:59 pm
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I think that every high school has it's cliques. However, it's not just high schools, it's middle schools as well. Everyone's goal in middle school and high school it seemed like, was to fit in and be popular. I don't know if as a society we will ever be able to get away from the whole "clique" idea. I think cliques have gotten a bad rep though. It is not possible to hang out with everyone in your entire high school. There are natrually going to be people that you are drawn to, that you get along with better than others. That is not a bad thing. I do think it is a bad thing when you are not nice to everyone in high school. You can have your own group of friends but be nice to and "friends" with everyone in high school. I tried to smile at everyone in high school and not pick and choose who I was friends with in my classes. It is completely different in the college setting. It's easy to be friends with the whole class because you go in not knowing anyone usually, and if you do, you meet people together. I just think cliques become a problem when they are mean and exclusive, rather than being friendly to everyone.

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Rachel Tyler


Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:59 am
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Sadly, I agree with what has been said. I say sadly because I wish people in schools did not establish themselves as being part of a group, but they definitely do. Everyone has their close friends, picked because they usually share some interest as you. When this happens people start segregating themselves and talking less to others. I saw it in my middle and high school and will probably see it in my classroom. I have seen teachers make judgements of students based on what group they were considered a part of, which I think is terrible. As teachers, we should never judge our students based on anything. Every student should be started with a clean slate. It is easier in college to talk to new people because you do not know their background and can start off with a clean slate. Cliques are something that will take a long time to overcome because not everyone is going to want to be nice to everyone else. I hope in my classroom to attempt to break down some of those barriers and get students talking to each other. I personally have gotten to know so many great people at App that I know I wouldn't have been friends with in high school and I wish I had gotten to know more people from my school.


Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:17 pm
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Sadly, as much as anyone wants to believe that high school students could be open to new people and new experiences, most aren't. My high school experience showed that you could slide between groups, but only groups that were pretty similar. You could hang out with the "popular" kids if you hung out with a similar group that maybe wasn't exactly the coolest kids, but you definitley didn't mix up with the band kids or the goths or anything like that. In my school, popularity was slightly academically driven. You hung out with the kids that were around your intelligence, and somehow the popular group stemmed out of this. It is easy for us to look back once we get out of it and wonder why everyone can't get along, but when you're inside its just a fight to fit in.

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Sara G Marshall


Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:01 pm
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I agree with Rachel. I think that cliques start as early as middle school, if not sooner. The middle school I went to was one of the worst for cliques. There were more fights between different groups it was almost scary. There were just as many girl fights as boys. I was in the prep/athlete group and a lot of the so called alternative group absolutely despised us. Several of my teammates got into bloody fights with the alternative group. I think that a lot of this had to do with the fact that the middle school was combined between our two rival high schools (Maiden and Bandys for anyone who has heard of these two schools). Did anyone else go to a middle school like this? If so, was there animosity between students who were going to different high schools?

I agree that college has less of this, but there are still cliques in college too. Greeks tend to hang out together, as do athletes, and band members. As mentioned many times, people tend to hang out with people with common interests.

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William Byrne


Thu Feb 15, 2007 4:29 pm
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I think that it is hard to hang out with a group of people that you don't have anything in common with. However, if you do have things in common, I think those barriers can be broken - it is just a lot of work. Common experience is what bring us together and makes us feel comfortable with another human being. Even slight differences can be awkward (like different family traditions for the same holidays and such). Being aware of these needs can help us build relationships in our classrooms.

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Lesley Paige de Paoli


Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:14 pm
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It's hard to decide if the common interests come first or not. I think they must, but to a certain extent, we adopt many of the interests of our peer group the more we hang out with them.

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Matthew Pickard


Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:07 pm
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I found that as the students in my high school got older, the clique mentality started to melt away. I think we began to see that a party is a lot more fun if a lot more people are there :) Being someone who refused to be labeled, I did my best to hang out with people in every group. I had friends on the soccer team, theater kids, band kids, kids of other ethnicities. Unfortunately, I also got a lot of crap because I wouldn't just join one group. I think that we need to mix things up in our classes to help cut out the clique crap. Students need to be told the truth- that they are all going to be small fish once they go to college or into the real world. I think that cliques are negative when they are exclusive and rude to other groups. However, we are all going to have a group of friends that we hang out with from adolescence to adult hood and I think that is normal and healthy.

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Erin Nevitt


Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:49 pm
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In my high school we only had a few cliques. We had rednecks, band kids, jocks/cheerleaders and everyone else. It was really ridiculous. I was a cheerleader in high school but I hated being labeled and did my best to have friends in all different cliques but seeing as my best and closest friends were also in my same clique I found it hard to get outside of my clique. I definetly think after hanging out with the same people for so long you do obtain the same interests as they do which makes it just easier to stay in your clique instead of trying to get outside of it. They are so stupid because once you graduate it doesn't even matter anymore...I mean of course you are going to hang out with people you have more in common with, I mean why wouldn't you?


Mon Feb 26, 2007 8:19 pm
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I remember my first run in with the "clique" plague did not happen until my first year of middle school. My father is still in the military so I've spent much of my life moving from school to school. Somehow my family managed to spend a whole four years in one city, long enough for me to establish close friends and ties. After my fifth grade year my family was up and moved to Fort Polk, LA. I had forgotten what it was like to be the "new girl" and I can say it was not fun. I went to school in Leeseville which was majorly composed of locals. These kids had grown up their entire lives together, their parents went to high school together and they went to the same church (for the most part). I was singled out until I happened to befriend the three other army brats in my class.
As unfair and even stupid as cliques seem, it's almost as if cliques are around because they make us feel secure. Who knows what would happen if you sat at a table full of people you'd never met before. Would they like you? Would you have anything in common? We create these cliques because we never want to feel like the "new girl." As long as people have insecurities we will have cliques.

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Chelsie Alfaro


Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:10 pm
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I agree with Lesley that usually cliques tend to form out of people with common interests. And it is possible to join a clique, but it can be very difficult, especially if it is made up of a bunch of people who have known each other for a very long time. Usually to do that you have to have a very outgoing personality. As far as cliques in college, I think that not much changes as far as the fact that people who are similar tend to hang out together. The reason that college is so different than high school and middle school is just that people don't care as much. Most people go to a college that is a lot bigger than their high schools so you are in a much larger pool of people. Also, people grow up (at least a little) in college. For the most part I think that people generally stop caring about what other people think and just do their own thing.

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Elizabeth McPhail Dawson


Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:50 pm
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After watching that video I started wondering about my run-in's with cliques and stuff as well. I started to analyze what group of people I hang out with here in college too. And it was very interesting to me to see that the people I hang out with are very similar to the type of people I hung out with in highschool. Similar socio-economic backgrounds, a drive to succeed, some what "good kids". Lesley and Elizabeth are right that you really do hangout with people that you have stuff in common with. I guess it is just what we are comfortable with.

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Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:49 am
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