Cliques: The Untold Story

Shelby Sheppard
Mrs. Mears
English 1 Honors
3 May 2014
Cliques: The Untold Story
Depression is taking over adolescents across the world. 11% of 18-year-old adolescents have developed a form of depression (“Depression in Children and Adolescents (Fact Sheet).”). Depression can form from a multitude of problems. Cliques can be a cause of depression at school or a workplace. Cliques are a group of people that have the same interests or are in the same social class (“Chapter Outline.”). The diversity between cliques and students causes a feeling of isolation and depression as well as loneliness in the adolescent. This can affect a school or workplace negatively if cliques do not stop because their work/school ethic could change.
These types of social groups can make a person feel left out or humiliated. Some cliques will “jeer at others, humiliate people or choose to exclude” others (“How Cliques Make Kids Feel Left Out.” ). Excluding a person could make them sit away from the group and feel isolated. Cliques are formed and separated from everyone else due to different reasons. They can separate due to race, gender, and social class. This group can also be caused by a feeling of homophily, to stick around people that share a common interest, which affects the process of “peer selection and socialization” (Goodwin). Cliques could also separate themselves through popularity. A group of people may look at themselves as “’cooler’ or better than others” (“Friends, Cliques and Peer Pressure | Barnardos Ireland.”).This type of judging could affect the way other groups look at themselves and others. Teenagers in different cliques from one another “tend to inflate the positive qualities of their own crowd” while as well as “exaggerat[ing] ...

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...ing the floaters adult life easier. These ‘floaters’ may not know it but are using a “more sophisticated, adult form of socializing” (“Conquering Cliques in School.” ). Floaters can help by taking withdrawn or isolated teens and help them become a floater. Withdrawn and isolated teens need to associate themselves with others and not people that are having the same problems. Depressed teens that associate themselves with other depressed teens tend to have their depression collectively worsen (“Chapter Outline.”). This solution of ‘floaters’ can help the social system within the school.
If ‘floaters’ could be added to the school the clique system could eventually lessen until there were no cliques but only groups. Groups tend to be more developing with “relationship and communication skills” (“Friends, Cliques and Peer Pressure | Barnardos Ireland.”).