>What you refer to as cliques - are actually friendships. Friendships and socializing, are hugely important. While I don't disagree, the effect is the same fro

>What you refer to as cliques - are actually friendships. Friendships and socializing, are hugely important. While I don't disagree, the effect is the same from the school's perspective: 1. they are hostile to group outsiders 2. punishing any member makes the whole group hostile to the teacher 3. they're a basis to spread peer pressure 4. they can form rivalries with other cliques What I'm saying is, the positive effects do not benefit the school directly, while the negative effects do, and are difficult to deal with. >As for rivalries and cycles of revenge - can you give an example of what that'd look like? I personally haven't experienced either. Neither have I - possibly because of the mash up system - but I can see a failure mode like this: student X quarrels with student Y; Student Y gets his friends together and beats up student X; student X gets his friends together and beats up a friend of student Y; etc. Now you have the start of a gang problem.