ABSTRACT
The Year 10 population contained several prominent friendship/activity groups, some with marked cultural differences. The four selected were ‘the footballers’, a basically Anglo-Australian group which had absorbed individuals of other ethnic origins and whose major preoccupation was playing rugby for the school and local clubs and touch football in the school grounds; ‘the Greeks’, a group of second generation Greek Australians who were proud of their ethnicity and resented the Anglo or ‘Aussie’ presumption of cultural superiority; ‘the handballers’, a loosely knit group of quieter boys who gathered around the handball court as much for conversation as handball; and ‘the three friends’, a group of near outcasts who were stigmatized as ‘poofs’ for what was regarded by footballers, Greeks and some handballers as effeminate behavior and who resented the macho dominance of the footballers in particular. Other students also were interviewed, and a questionnaire administered to all Year 10.
