USA schools

[simon]

as there are a fair few of our USA cousins on here,I thought I would ask something I always wondered about,

Are schools in the USA as segmented as TV would have us believe,we always hear about the jock crowd,geeks,popular crowd etc and if so were do out gays fit into this mix?

[Marvinteck]

I graduated high school in 2000. Back then everybody had cliques and groups of people that they hung out with. I was a social outcast myself. I didnt fit in with my classmates. I grew up in a small conservative town out in the country. A openly gay student was unheard of in my high school. The town I grew up in was very homophobic. Rumors would circulate that certain staff or students were gay. People would make fun of them and talk behind there backs. I remember sitting on the bus one day and hearing a female student wonder aloud if any gay students were on the bus. She said there more than likely were and she exclaimed how disgusting it was that we had to share a bus with them. I cant really comment on todays social climate in the schools but Im sure things have slightly improved for gays. High school is as rough right of passage for many kids growing up.

[Glaedr]

Middle schools and high schools can be that way yes. Gays are not welcomed very much by the other guys in the school, but the girls dont seem to mind much. When I was going through it, there was no way in the world I would come out then, but college is a bit different. At universities, People care a lot less about age, sports status (unless your Cam Newton), sexuality, or race. The people you meet in college are a lot more accepting of everyone. Theres even a kid here that wears Drag to class every once in a while, sure people still make comments, but what ive heard, everyone thinks hes actually a reall cool, this coming from both straight men and gay men. Its a big differnce in college.

Short answer, yes and no.

[TimmyThink]

I can't for the schools in the U.S. but my school pretty segmented, i don't know if everyone as seen it but there is this scene in Means Girls when they pan around the cafe and like run through where all the different social groups ate lunch.

It was like Jocks table, goth table, ect...ect....well that was actually kind of accurate, at least that how it was in my high school anyway.

I myself sat at the geek table, which was in the very corner on the cafe, right in front of the vending machines and right beside the emergency exit. After eating we would all go hang out in the tech wing and play magic or Yu-Gi-oh. Jocks hung out in the gym or the weight room, the cool rich kids hung by the parking lot entrance, I think so I could keep an eye on there cars.

[jbrowder24]

I graduated high school in 2000. Back then everybody had cliques and groups of people that they hung out with. I was a social outcast myself. I didnt fit in with my classmates. I grew up in a small conservative town out in the country. A openly gay student was unheard of in my high school. The town I grew up in was very homophobic. Rumors would circulate that certain staff or students were gay. People would make fun of them and talk behind there backs. I remember sitting on the bus one day and hearing a female student wonder aloud if any gay students were on the bus. She said there more than likely were and she exclaimed how disgusting it was that we had to share a bus with them. I cant really comment on todays social climate in the schools but Im sure things have slightly improved for gays. High school is as rough right of passage for many kids growing up.

My experience in high school was very similar, though I myself was in deep denial and didn't really realize/admit to myself I was gay then.

However, college for me was much better, despite going to a small college (around 600 students total) that in some ways was also high school-like.

I can't say at either place that there were outright groups as seen on tv, i.e. we didn't have the obvious preps, goths, nerds, but there were cliques, just less easily defined other than popular and not popular.

[SrChulo]

In my school i'd say it was more like a continuum of "coolness," rather than different groups. So everyone fell somewhere along the line.

It's funny though, I went to an international highschool for my first year of HS, and there were ZERO cliques whatsoever. Everyone just hung out and got along great. It was pretty amazing.

[OrphanPip]

Well I didn't go to school in the US, but my high school still had cliques.

It was an inner city school, but fairly small, as most English language schools are in Montreal. There were the black gangs, and the white gangs, (speaking in criminal terms here) that were trouble and kept to themselves. Then there were just regular popular kids and unpopular kids.

And if you must know, being gay and the biggest nerd in the world didn't make me very popular ha. I never saw bullying as all that big a problem, except in the younger groups. There were two other gay guys in my graduating class, only one of them openly gay though, and he wasn't bullied much as far as I'm aware of. Which is surprising because I still find him insufferable when I run into him downtown.