It’s early in the morning. You don’t want to get up. Not just because you’re tired, but because you don’t want to go to school. Maybe you had a fight with your friends. Maybe you are embarrassed that your parents aren’t letting you go to a party that everyone else will attend. Maybe you don’t have the right clothes. Maybe you just feel like you don’t fit in and no one understands you.

We’ve all seen them, both in our high schools and in the media. Cliques of both boys and girls. Shows and books like Gossip Girl, The A-List and movies like Mean Girls revolve around this phenomenon that is all too real in high schools across the country.

Belonging to a clique is based on shared values, and these values are usually superficial things – how you look, what clothes you wear, and undying devotion to the clique’s “leader.”