The Phileas Club 67 – Special: Cliques and freaks

On this episode we talk about… US high school cliques.

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Comments

  1. Bertozzi Julien says:

    Very interesting episode !
    In Belgium, it seems very close to the kind of experience you have in France. And we get to choose in which school we want to go.

    • Actually in France we go to the one we’re geographically assigned to. However in high school we already start choosing our “specialization” (usually literary / science / economy). Not sure that’s what you meant for Belgium.

  2. Keegan White says:

    Doing my homework 😛
    My experience in American high school was that the classic cliques existed, but I was a “floater” who was friendly with people of all different cliques but didn’t find real friends in any of them until I left high school. However, my observation was that other people generally stuck within their cliques and bullied people from the “lower” cliques. The movies definitely exaggerate the severity but like with most things in movies it is rooted in reality. Love the show, and thank you for the shout out!

  3. Giorlando Lima says:

    Brazil has an immense cultural pressure coming from the US, and so happened that my experience with cliques was very akin to the north american one, albeit in a very cartoonish way. However, I was in the lower echelon and, let’s just keep at that, I don’t have fond memories of the multiple types of violence kids can practice in one another.
    But the interesting thing about the Brazilian experience is that, since we have a huge wealth gap and our public education went bananas 30 years ago, schools are full of students of the same social-demographic group. And so we have students that need to perform their roles in their cliques in a very intense way because, otherwise, the homogeneity would make them all very similar to each other.
    Anyway, just trying to share my experience in these hot lands. As usual, great episode. It was very good to think about these subjects.

    • Hmm that’s interesting indeed: more homogeneity increasing the intensity of différenciation through cliques. I guess I never thought of that… Thanks for the comment! And the kind words.

  4. Got an interesting comment from Cassie via email, copying it here with permission:

    My name is Cassie and I just got done listening to your podcasts on high school cliques. I went to two high schools, both in the south but both very different sizes. My first high school was in South Carolina (US) and was the only public high school for the whole city. It has over 2,500+ students and as a Freshman and Sophomore, I noticed that while there where groups, it seemed to me that in a school that large, there is no one “on top” since there is not way that 2,500 other students are going to know who you are. I was active in theater and the German club and even then, I didn’t encounter much bullying. When I moved in North Carolina in my Junior year, I went to a high school that was newly built and that only serviced about 400 students. Because it was so small and in the rural part of the state, mostly everyone knew each other or where related. This meant that often students where in more than one activity so groups tended to blend together so there was very little hierarchy.
    I just started listening when I heard about this podcast on The Instance and I have fallen in love with it. It has helped me understand different cultures and often surprises me that there are so many differences! I even mentioned it to some of my professors. Thank you for all that you do!
    Cheers,
    Cassie Carter

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