I volunteer at our local high school and have noticed

[tavernier]

that for the most part, different racial and ethnic groups tend to cluster at their own tables at lunch time in the cafeteria. They do interchange with each other in line and are always friendly and jovial, often hugs and fist bumps, etc., but like metal filings to a magnet, once they reach their tables they pretty much stick with their own.

Just an observation I was thinking about at work last week.

[virgogal]

1. High schoolers are very cliquey,always have been.

[lunatica]

4. You're right

It was the same way when my son was in High School in the 1980s. It was the same with the sexes. Girls and boys clustered with people of similar sex.

[Under The Radar]

2. Has it not always been this way?

Was when I was a kid. Always a few exceptions like those interracial dating, those with common interest like sports etc. you sit where you are welcome, right?

[Wounded Bear]

6. Pretty much...

It's a natural inclination.

It does take effort to make sure that doesn't turn into exclusionary behaviors, though.

[uponit7771]

3. Its around high school where signs of in group oppression are recognized and the past acts are

... factored into current positions.

It becomes a shock to a certain degree then we learn out group support can get us more fair chances

[tavernier]

8. Yes. Hmm... interesting.

[stopdiggin]

5. this is standard human behavior.

we seek out (with the rare exception) that which is comfortable. Still somewhat troubling, but .. this self segregation is still several orders of magnitude better that the "enforced' segregation that held sway in earlier times. As you also noted .. the kids can mix (and match) if and when they chose to do so. And that in itself ....

[tavernier]

7. Yes, and they do...

They joke, flirt, chatter happily, very different from the 50’s and 60’s when I grew up. Like you said, “that in itself” ... is a big move forward. I guess we did make some difference.

[Aristus]

9. There's nothing wrong with self-segregation.

It's when it becomes institutionalized that we've gone off the rails.

[delisen]

10. Self segregation is a sign of de facto segregation

and limits individual achievement for members of any non-dominant group.

[Aristus]

11. That's valid.

I think we're likely to see less self-segregation as the wounds of institutionalized segregation recede into the past.

[Leith]

12. It's a Primate thing

https://www.neatorama.com/2013/12/15/When-the-Actors-in-Planet-of-the-Apes-Donned-Their-Makeup-They-Spontaneously--Segregated-Themselves/

Here's a fascinating story from the filming of the 1968 science fiction film Planet of the Apes. In that movie, there are 3 ape species: chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. When the actors for the ape characters put on their makeup and costumes, they segregated themselves by species:

During the filming of Planet of the Apes in 1967, Charlton Heston noted “an instinctive segregation on the set. Not only would the apes eat together, but the chimpanzees ate with the chimpanzees, the gorillas ate with the gorillas, the orangutans ate with the orangutans, and the humans would eat off by themselves. It was quite spooky.”

James Franciscus noticed the same thing filming Beneath the Planet of the Apes in 1969. “During lunch I looked up and realized, ‘My God, here is the universe,’ because at one table were all the orangutans eating, at another table were the apes, and at another table were the humans. The orangutan characters would not eat or mix with the ape characters, and the humans wouldn’t sit down and eat with any one of them.

[LuvNewcastle]

13. Sharing a meal is a form of intimacy, which is why

it's usually a privilege to be invited to dine with someone else. We generally want to eat with others we feel comfortable with, or else we'd rather eat alone. After all, we get our first meals from our mothers and with family members. I think a lot of this preference is related to safety; we don't want to be around people who might poison or mess around with our food. Also, I'm sure it has lots to do with similar levels of hygiene and enjoyable conversation while we fill up.