History Main / AbsurdlyDividedSchool

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1645123159022210900
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/springfield_elementary.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:And non-binary students use the white stripe.]]

%% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion in the Caption Repair thread:
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900

* In ''Manga/BoardingSchoolJuliet'', the school is built on a tiny island that the Towans and the people of the West fight over (like everything else). Technically it's two schools right next to each other, but the students regularly cross over to fight each other and field trips are more or less shared.

* ''Literature/TheMagicians,'' third-year students at [[WizardingSchool Brakebills]] are tested for their magical specialties (commonly known as Disciplines) and sorted into groups based on power categories: healing, knowledge, illusion, nature, and so on. Quentin Coldwater and Alice Quinn are sorted into the Physical Kids - the rarest grouping of all, known for practicing messy, brutal physic-based magic. Each group has their own elaborate dorm room, though they're more like exclusive clubhouses - all of them strictly off-limits to outsiders. Several long-standing rivalries exist between each faction, especially between the Naturals and the Physical Kids; the only point in which the competition between them is put on hold occurs during the TrainingFromHell at [[MysteriousAntarctica Brakebills South]] in the Fourth Year.

* Experiment House, in [[Creator/CSLewis C. S. Lewis's]] ''Literature/TheSilverChair,'' is a horrid example of this trope. Run on the theory that "boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked," a gang of bullies take over and make the lives of all the others, including our protagonists Jill and Eustace, living nightmares. They are so feared that they are referred to only as '' "Them" '', and the faculty is on "Their" side: "The Head said they were interesting psychological cases and sent for them and talked to them for hours. And if you knew the right sort of things to say to the Head, the main result was that you became rather a favourite than otherwise."

* ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'': The First Year arc and the spinoff story "A Certain Scientific Mental Out" show that Tokiwadai middle school takes the whole "clique" thing very seriously. Virtually everyone in the school is part of a clique, though some may be as small as 3, and the handful of students who aren't are seen as weird by the rest. Unlike most examples, these cliques aren't formed based on a common interest or trait. Instead they are formed around a particular student, a "Clique Leader", making the whole thing something of a popularity contest. There is a laundry list of strict rules governing how the cliques operate and interact with each other. It's unclear how many of these rules are official school rules but at the very least they are universally understood and followed. The student council elections go so far as to treat the cliques like political parties and the majority of the election rules revolve around them. There are also conflicts between cliques, which can escalate to outright violence, all with their own rules of engagement.

Compare UrbanSegregation and AggressiveCategorism, FantasticCasteSystem, IntraScholasticRivalry, and GroupedForYourConvenience, all of which capture similar ideas about division and judgment, but on a wider scale than just a school setting. They may overlap if the school system is a ''product'' of the wider societal issues. Contrast with SchoolForcedUsTogether, where the school system acts to bring students with different personalities and backgrounds together.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'', Bullworth Academy is divided into five main cliques: [[BarbaricBully the Bullies]], [[MadScientist the Nerds]], [[DumbJock the]] [[JerkJock Jocks]], [[AristocratsAreEvil the Preppies]], and [[GreaserDelinquents the Greasers]]. Part of the game includes doing sidequests to earn/lose reputation with each of these factions.

* Students in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' are divided into the titular [[TitleDrop three houses]] depending upon their region of origin: the Black Eagles for the Adrestrian Empire, the Blue Lions for the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Golden Deer for the Leicester Alliance, with each house, specialising in certain weapons; the DLC adds the Ashen Wolves, a semi-official house for homeless students. You can recruit students to your house if you meet their requirements or your [[RelationshipValues Support Points]] are high enough. Once the TimeSkip occurs, everyone (with [[UndyingLoyalty some exceptions]]) is united under your chosen house (or [[spoiler:the Church of Seiros]] depending on your route).

Compare UrbanSegregation and AggressiveCategorism, FantasticCasteSystem, and GroupedForYourConvenience, all of which capture similar ideas about division and judgment, but on a wider scale than just a school setting. They may overlap if the school system is a ''product'' of the wider societal issues. Contrast with SchoolForcedUsTogether, where the school system acts to bring students with different personalities and backgrounds together.

* [[WizardingSchool Hogwarts]] students in ''Literature/HarryPotter'' are divided into four houses (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw) when they join the WizardingSchool. Each year, they compete in a contest about getting the most school points on good behavior, and whichever house gets the most points at the end of the school year wins the House Cup. In addition, they also compete in a [[FictionalSport Quidditch]] tournament every year. This results in Hogwarts Houses being very tribalistic (especially between Gryffindor and Slytherin) and have wildly differing cultures, such as Slytherin having [[FantasticRacism more support for blood purity]] and Ravenclaw being more intellectual. This setup derived from a dispute among the Hogwarts founders about which personality type (and in Salazar Slytherin's case, which ancestry) the school should recruit.

* ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'': The First Year arc and the spinoff story A Certain Scientific Mental Out show that Tokiwadai middle school takes the whole "clique" thing very seriously. Virtually everyone in the school is part of a clique, though some may be as small as 3, and the handful of students who aren't are seen as weird by the rest. Unlike most examples, these cliques aren't formed based on a common interest or trait. Instead they are formed around a particular student, a "Clique Leader", making the whole thing something of a popularity contest. There is a laundry list of strict rules governing how the cliques operate and interact with each other. It's unclear how many of these rules are official school rules but at the very least they are universally understood and followed. The student council elections go so far as to treat the cliques like political parties and the majority of the election rules revolve around them. There are also conflicts between cliques, which can escalate to outright violence, all with their own rules of engagement.

* ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'': The First Year arc and the spinoff story A Certain Scientific Mental Out show that Tokiwadai middle school takes the whole "clique" thing very seriously. Virtually everyone in the school is part of a clique, though some may be as small as 3, and the handful of students who aren't are seen as weird by the rest. There is a laundry list of strict rules governing how the cliques operate and interact with each other. It's unclear how many of these rules are official school rules but at the very least they are universally understood and followed. The student council elections go so far as to treat the cliques like political parties and the majority of the election rules revolve around them. There are also conflicts between cliques, which can escalate to outright violence, all with their own rules of engagement.

* In ''Film/MeanGirls'', the school is aggressively split into cliques. These cliques, we are told, dictate your whole social life and capital; there is ''no'' overlap between them. The possibility that Cady would even be friends with [[CoolLoser Janis]] is akin to social suicide.

* ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'': The First Year arc and the spinoff story A Certain Scientific Mental Out show that Tokiwadai middle school takes the whole "clique" thing very seriously. Virtually everyone in the school is part of a clique, though some may be as small as 3, the handful of students who aren't are seen as weird by the rest. There is a laundry list of strict rules governing how the cliques operate and interact with each other. It's unclear how many of these rules are official school rules but at the very least they are universally understood and followed. The student council elections go so far as to treat the cliques like political parties and the majority of the election rules revolve around them. There are also conflicts between cliques, which can escalate to outright violence, all with their own rules of engagement.

* ''ACertainScientificRailgun'': The First Year arc and the spinoff story A Certain Scientific Mental Out show that Tokiwadai middle school takes the whole "clique" thing very seriously. Virtually everyone in the school is part of a clique, though some may be as small as 3, the handful of students who aren't are seen as weird by the rest. There is a laundry list of strict rules governing how the cliques operate and interact with each other. It's unclear how many of these rules are official school rules but at the very least they are universally understood and followed. The student council elections go so far as to treat the cliques like political parties and the majority of the election rules revolve around them. There are also conflicts between cliques, which can escalate to outright violence, all with their own rules of engagement.

Every school is somewhat divided into different, smaller groups, as every student would naturally find their own niche eventually and people generally hang out with other people with similar interests and personalities. It's only natural for the student body to be split, and for cliques to form as a result. But in fictionland, sometimes this is taken to its natural extreme- not only is the school divided, but those divides decide ''everything'' in the school. The cliques don't mingle, and when they do, it's to antagonize each other, with each group seeing all the others in a negative light.

The most common forms of division are:

* Clique-Based: Every student is sorted into a clique, and it's frowned upon to have friends or interests outside of that one clique. Sometimes there are so many cliques we need a CliqueTour to introduce them all, but other times, it's boiled down to the basic "Popular Student Clique versus Everyone Else", with that elite clique often being involved in sports. Please note though that a school just ''having'' cliques isn't enough -- there must be some acknowledgment of the divide these cliques cause in order to count.

* Grade-Based: Characters are split up by the school itself into groups based on academic standing, with the worst-ranking students often being treated like dirt as a result. Moving up may be as simple as getting better grades, but these students may have their abilities sabotaged or limited, forcing them to stay where they are. This can overlap with the Social-Class variant pretty easily, as lower-class students are less likely to do as well in school, but it's not inherent.
* House-Based: Usually limited to old-fashioned British private schools (and those modelled on them), the House system primarily differs from the above in that it's officially imposed by the school to foster competition. In real life, Houses are distinguished by ThemeNaming and ColourCodedForYourConvenience and often not much else, with allocation being either random or [[InTheBlood legacy-based]]. In fiction, they will frequently represent different personality types in the same way as organic cliques -- you can expect to find an academic House, a sporty one, and so on.

Of course, any division reason may apply, as long as the school is divided to such an extreme that there are at least two separate, co-existing cultures that are at odds with each other. One group is far more likely to be treated better than the others, so this allows the AlphaBitch, JerkJock, BigManOnCampus, and AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil to thrive, regardless of why the school is divided. It may also be enforced by the school's faculty, all the way up to a strict DeanBitterman, who considers any attempt to shake up this system as rule-breaking and chaos. It can also be self-perpetuating, with the students themselves encouraging this divide, or rule-enforced, where this division is an actual school policy.

Compare UrbanSegregation and AggressiveCategorism, FantasticCasteSystem, and GroupedForYourConvenience, all of which capture similar ideas about division and judgment, but on a wider scale than just a school setting. They may overlap if the school system is a ''product'' of the wider societal issues. Contrast with SchoolForcedUsTogether, where the school system acts to brings students with differing personalities and backgrounds together.

* ''Manga/{{Freezing}}'': West Genetics (and other Pandora training centers) is divided along grade lines; the later-year students are literally lower-year students' military superiors. The AdultsAreUseless, so this turns into a DrillSergeantNasty scenario where the upperclassmen are free to brutally bully the younger students virtually without consequences. The entire first arc consists of second-year protagonist Satellizer El Bridget getting into an escalating one-woman war with the third-year students, until StudentCouncilPresident Chiffon Fairchild finally directly orders the third-years to stand down after transfer student Rana Linchen gets dragged into it.

* ''Film/LemonadeMouth'': The high school is very much run on the principle of "Athletes Vs. Everyone Else". All the non-athletic clubs are shoved into the basement and are severely neglected by their sports-obsessed principal, and when the titular band tries and revolt against this unfair treatment, they get bullied by the most powerful kids in school and targeted by said principal, as well.

* In ''Film/SkyHigh2005'', the titular school is divided between [[{{Superhero}} heroes]] and "hero support", also known as {{sidekick}}s, based solely on their powers at the time of enrollment. "Hero support" students are looked down on by pretty much everyone else, and outright bulled in most cases, in addition to their classroom being much smaller and poorly funded, and them not even having the privilege to choose their own hero names. The driving conflict of the film is the protagonist being sorted into hero support for not having a superpower. [[spoiler:Being relegated to hero support was also the StartOfDarkness for Sue Tenny, aka the {{supervillain}} [[BigBad Royal Pain]], especially given that her {{technopath}} power wound up being highly valued and getting her placed on the hero track when her de-aged self went back to school as [[EvilAllALong Gwen Grayson]].]]
* ''Film/TheWave1981'' is about a high school teacher creating a social movement (the Wave) in his class encouraging discipline and a definite us/them mentality, which at first produces positive results but quickly degenerates into an elitist environment where people are getting ostracized for not joining the movement. The teacher quickly announces the movement's leader will make a televised broadcast... [[GodwinsLaw and shows a picture of Hitler.]]

* [[WizardingSchool Hogwarts]] students in ''Literature/HarryPotter'' are divided into four houses (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw) at the beginning of their education at the WizardingSchool. Each year, they compete in a contest about getting the most school points on good behavior, and whichever house gets the most points at the end of the school year wins the House Cup. In addition, they also compete in a [[FictionalSport Quidditch]] tournament every year. This results in Hogwarts Houses being very tribalistic (especially between Gryffindor and Slytherin) and have wildly differing cultures, such as Slytherin having [[FantasticRacism more support for blood purity]] and Ravenclaw being more intellectual. This setup derived from a dispute among the Hogwarts founders about which personality type (and in Salazar Slytherin's case, which ancestry) the school should recruit.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' has Thors' Military Academy, a military academy in the empire of Erebonia that has been around for over 200 years, and has always had classes segregated based on social status. The plot involves the creation of Class VII, the first class in the academy's history to mix nobles and commoners. Besides Class VII, each year has five segregated classes, with three classes for commoners and two classes for nobles. The noble students tend to get a lot of perks that the commoners don't have access to, such as access to a salon, and summer vacation.

* ''Manga/{{Freezing}}'': West Genetics (and other Pandora training centers) is divided along grade lines such that instead of being SenpaiKohai, the later-year students are literally lower-year students' military superiors. The AdultsAreUseless, so this turns into a DrillSergeantNasty scenario where the sempai are free to brutally bully the kohai virtually without consequences. The entire first arc consists of second-year protagonist Satellizer El Bridget getting into an escalating one-woman war with the third-year students, until StudentCouncilPresident Chiffon Fairchild finally directly orders the third-years to stand down after transfer student Rana Linchen gets dragged into it.

* Deslgade, the titular school of ''LightNovel/TheMisfitOfDemonKingAcademy'' splits its students into pure-demon "nobles" and demon-human hybrids. Their uniforms tell them apart, the former having reds and golds and the latter blues and silvers.

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'':
** In "Non-fraternization Policy" (a radio episode), Mr. Conklin is upset that his wife is away from home. So he demands that all male and female faculty members and students at Madison High refrain from talking to one another, except on matters that are strictly due to school business. The order extends to forcing male and female students to eat separately in the school cafeteria.
** In the [[CanonDiscontinuity television-exclusive season set]] at Mrs. Nestor's Private Elementary School, a lonely Mrs. Nestor makes the same order. Mr. Conklin, in spite of being hired as principal, is forced to pay a fine for talking to his wife on school property.

* ''Manga/{{Freezing}}'': West Genetics (and other Pandora training centers) is divided along grade lines such that instead of being SempaiKohai, the later-year students are literally lower-year students' military superiors. The AdultsAreUseless, so this turns into a DrillSergeantNasty scenario where the sempai are free to brutally bully the kohai virtually without consequences. The entire first arc consists of second-year protagonist Satellizer El Bridget getting into an escalating one-woman war with the third-year students, until StudentCouncilPresident Chiffon Fairchild finally directly orders the third-years to stand down after transfer student Rana Linchen gets dragged into it.