People have been saying that high school social groups are like a caste system for a long time. However, I don’t think that theory is all too accurate. People compare them by saying both have a clear top system and a clear bottom system, and in a way the treatment of different kinds of people in high school makes that kind of true, but it mostly isn’t.

Caste systems are usually thousands of years old, while the concept of public high school didn’t begin until the mid 1860s and public high school wasn’t fully inclusive of everyone until the late 1960s.

My next point to mention is that most castes are formed due to religious reasons while most public school groups (besides the Fellowship of Christian Athletes) are not religious at all. Some caste systems use religious beliefs as an excuse for oppressing people, while school popularity is not nearly as oppressive as a bad caste system.

Another thing to keep in mind is that caste systems these days are sparse, while school popularity is as common as house flies in summer. Caste systems are largely south Asian in design, particularly Indian, while the typical high school popularity system people talk about is mainly North American and particularly in the United States.

Caste systems are actually very different from high school popularity. As I said previously, most caste systems are based on religion while school “cliques” are usually built up off of common interests. Also most caste systems are dead while high school cliques are still around. The main difference is culture and how their structure is run.