ABSTRACT
STUDENTS Because students formally pursue academic learning, they as a group are often overlooked in folklife studies, which emphasize cultural traditions in informal settings of home and work. In various institutional and occupational settings, however, students participate in longstanding cultural traditions and form distinctive social identities. The central features of the student experience are an association with a school and the social bonds formed within the institutional setting. Some of these traditions are administratively organized, and others are formed or performed by students themselves, sometimes as activities that subvert the administration. Much of student lore relates to the power relationship between student and teacher, and the formation of a cohesive group or groups of students who are relative strangers to one another.
