History Main / AbsurdlyDividedSchool

* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': The six schools of Asterisk compete among themselves for recruits, funding, and resources from the [[OneNationUnderCopyright integrated enterprise foundations]], and all field prize-fighter teams for the annual Festa tournaments. Arlequint Academie takes this even further, deliberately factionalizing its own student body and forcing the factions to compete within the school for research grants.

* In ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'', Shuchiin Academy students are divided between the pure students who have been in the Academy since childhood, and the impure students who came in from outside. The fact that Shirogane managed to become the Student Council President despite being impure is considered very impressive.

* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': The six schools of Asterisk compete among themselves for recruits, funding, and resources from the [[OneNationUnderCopyright integrated enterprise foundations]], and all field prize-fighter teams for the annual Festa tournaments. Arlequint Academie takes this even further, deliberately factionalizing its own student body and forcing the factions to compete within the school for research grants.
* In ''LightNovel/BakaAndTestSummonTheBeasts'', the students at Fumizuki Academy are academically sorted by the entrance exam test grades. The higher the grades, the higher the class, therefore better the benefits. In this case, Class A is filled with the highest-scoring students; therefore, their classroom is filled with many prestigious items (air conditioners, fancy seats, laptops, a free snack bar, etc.), while the state of Class F is the complete opposite of that, representing the "Bottom of the Barrel/Lowest of the Low" amenities, such as mats and low wooden tables.

* Deslgade, the titular school of ''LightNovel/TheMisfitOfDemonKingAcademy'' splits its students into pure-demon "nobles" and demon-human hybrids. Their uniforms tell them apart, the former having reds and golds and the latter blues and silvers.

* ''Literature/ImpracticalMagic'': Istima is referred to as the 'Six Court Academy'. There are stereotypes based on each court's unique hierarchy structure, public reputation, and how their different magics impact their world view. For instance, the rigid magic of the Autumn Court means the students are taught to follow rules and protocols strictly. They tend to be bureaucrats and lawyers. However, the Night Court's magic is based on individual will power and obstinance. They tend to have stubborn and personally charismatic leaders with little consistency between regimes. The story has a great deal of mingling between courts and lets characters be informed by learning to thrive in their specific court without being completely defined by it.

* ''Literature/TheMagicians,'' third-year students at [[WizardingSchool Brakebills]] are tested for their magical specialties (commonly known as Disciplines) and sorted into groups based on power categories: healing, knowledge, illusion, nature, and so on. Quentin Coldwater and Alice Quinn are sorted into the Physical Kids - the rarest grouping of all, known for practicing messy, brutal physic-based magic. Each group has their own elaborate dorm room, though they're more like exclusive clubhouses - all of them strictly off-limits to outsiders. Several long-standing rivalries exist between each faction, especially between the Naturals and the Physical Kids; the only point in which the competition between them is put on hold occurs during the TrainingFromHell at [[MysteriousAntarctica Brakebills South]] in the Fourth Year.

* Experiment House, in Creator/CSLewis ''Literature/TheSilverChair,'' is a horrid example of this trope. Run on the theory that "boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked," a gang of bullies take over and make the lives of all the others, including our protagonists Jill and Eustace, living nightmares. They are so feared that they are referred to only as '' "Them" '', and the faculty is on "Their" side: "The Head said they were interesting psychological cases and sent for them and talked to them for hours. And if you knew the right sort of things to say to the Head, the main result was that you became rather a favourite than otherwise."

* In ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', Duel Academy students get grouped into three dorms: Obelisk Blue students are the elites, in either dueling skills or family connections, Ra Yellow students are mostly promising duelists, and Slifer Red students are considered rejects and losers. There's a ''lot'' of strife between dorms -- at least, until [[TheHero Jaden Yuki]] (a Slifer Red) starts shaking up the status quo.

* In ''Film/MeanGirls'', the school is aggressively split into cliques. These cliques, we are told, dictate your whole social life and capital; there is ''no'' overlap between them. The possibility that Cady would even be friends with [[HollywoodNerd Janis]] is akin to social suicide.

[[caption-width-right:350:But how the hell do non-binary students get in?]]

[[caption-width-right:350:And non-binary students use the white stripe.]]

* In ''Film/MeanGirls'', the school is aggressively split into cliques. These cliques, we are told, dictate your whole social life and capital. There is ''no'' overlap between them; the possibility that Cady would even be friends with [[HollywoodNerd Janis]] is akin to social suicide.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/springfield_elementary.png]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/MeanGirls https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_cafeteria_cliques_mean_girls.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Your guide to the cafeteria cliques.]]

* In ''[[Manga/GreatTeacherOnizuka GTO: Paradise Lost]]'', Onizuka has to teach the G-class, where students are all teenage entertainers who are divided into three classes (A, B, and C) ranked by celebrity and enjoying, for the higher ranks, more privileges such as being able to more easily leave during courses.

* ''Manga/{{Freezing}}'': West Genetics (and other Pandora training centers) is divided along grade lines such that instead of being SempaiKohai, the later-year students are literally lower-year students' military superiors. The AdultsAreUseless, so this turns into a DrillSergeantNasty scenario where the sempai are free to brutally bully the kohai virtually without consequences. The entire first arc consists of second-year protagonist Satellizer El Bridget getting into an escalating one-woman war with the third-year students, until StudentCouncilPresident Chiffon Fairchild finally directly orders the third-years to stand down after transfer student Rana Linchen gets dragged into it.

* Social-Class-Based: The school is divided by the student's wealth or lack-there-of; usually this means there are a wealthier elite and a less-wealthy majority, who may have less privilege and worse treatment. The students sort themselves based on class, and as a result, there's often a class war that ensues.

* Experiment House, in Creator/CSLewis ''Literature/TheSilverChair,'' is a horrid example of this trope. Run-on the theory that "boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked," a gang of bullies take over and make the lives of all the others, including our protagonists Jill and Eustace, living nightmares. They are so feared that they are referred to only as '' "Them" '', and the faculty is on "Their" side: "The Head said they were interesting psychological cases and sent for them and talked to them for hours. And if you knew the right sort of things to say to the Head, the main result was that you became rather a favourite than otherwise."

* In ''Film/SkyHigh2005'', the titular school is divided between [[{{Superhero}} heroes]] and "hero support", also known as {{sidekick}}s, based solely on their powers at the time of enrollment. "Hero support" students are looked down on by pretty much everyone else, and outright bulled in most cases, in addition to their classroom being much smaller and poorly funded, and them not even having the privilege to choose their own hero names. The driving conflict of the film is the protagonist being sorted into hero support for not having a superpower. [[spoiler:Being relegated to hero support was also the StartOfDarkness for Sue Tenny, aka the {{supervillain}} Royal Pain, especially given that her {{technopath}} power wound up being highly valued and getting her placed on the hero track when her de-aged self went back to school as Gwen Grayson.]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Your guide to the cafeteria cliques]]

* ''Film/{{Bratz}}'' has the division as an actual school rule. When the four main characters first arrive, the AlphaBitch Meredith tries to sort them and everyone else into cliques in an effort to keep everything orderly. This actually manages to work for a few years, as everyone but Yasmin manages to fit into a clique, and the later attempts to break out of this situation is what creates the big conflict.

* ''Film/HighSchoolMusical'': A big plot-point in the first film was about how the school was ''so'' divided into cliques that everyone was horrified when Troy wanted to do something besides basketball. There's an entire song about how some of the students are having their secret passions suppressed, simply because their friends can't stand the thought of them expanding beyond their niche.

* In ''Film/MeanGirls'', the school is aggressively split into cliques. These cliques, we are told, dictate your whole social life and capital. There is ''no'' overlap between them; the possibility that Cady would even be friends with [[TeenageRebels Janis]] is akin to social suicide.
--> You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, JV jocks, Asian nerds, cool Asians, Varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don't eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks, the greatest people you will ever meet, and the worst. Beware of the Plastics.

* In ''Film/MeanGirls'', the school is aggressively split into cliques. These cliques, we are told, dictate your whole social life and capital. There is ''no'' overlap between them; the possibility that Cady would even be friends with [[HollywoodNerd Janis]] is akin to social suicide.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'', Bullworth Academy is divided into five main cliques: [[BarbaricBully the Bullies]], [[HollywoodNerd the]] [[MadScientist Nerds]], [[DumbJock the]] [[JerkJock Jocks]], [[AristocratsAreEvil the Preppies]], and [[GreaserDelinquents the Greasers]]. Part of the game includes doing sidequests to earn/lose reputation with each of these factions.

* ''Film/TheWave'' is about a high school teacher creating a social movement (the Wave) in his class encouraging discipline and a definite us/them mentality, which at first produces positive results but quickly degenerates into an elitist environment where people are getting ostracized for not joining the movement. The teacher quickly announces the movement's leader will make a televised broadcast... [[GodwinsLaw and shows a picture of Hitler.]]

* ''Film/TheWave'' is about a high school teacher creating a social movement (the Wave) in his class encouraging discipline and a definite us/them mentality, which at first produces positive results but quickly degenerates into an elitist environment where people are getting ostracized for not joining the movement. The teacher quickly announces the movement's leader will make a televised broadcast... [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped and shows a picture of Hitler.]]

* ''Franchise/LapisReLights'' features Flora Girls' Academy, a WizardingSchool where the academic performance of a student and their group determines the color of their uniform and the privileges they have. From highest to lowest, they are Noire (black), Rouge (red), and finally Lapis (blue). The 1st episode of the anime shows that Noire students have free access to the cafeteria and the baths while Lapis students have to wait till late at night.

* This is a main plot concept in ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'', in which the sociopathic headmaster of an elite private school keeps grades up by segregating the academically under-achieving in a tumbledown shack a long way from the main building, instituting rules designed solely to inconvenience and humiliate them, and encouraging the other pupils to hate and despise them.

* In ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'', Hogwarts is apparently divided into two antagonistic groups, the villainous, pastel-wearing, pop-music loving "Prepz", and the protagonist's group, the "goffs", who wear dark colors, listen to "goffik" music and even change their names to be "evil" or "dark" sounding. These two groups are so utterly opposed to each other that they regularly insult, torment, and ''assault'' one-another, but the "preps" are in a position of power, due to most of the school faculty taking their side. It used to be even worse in the past, as Enoby learns that Dumblydore used to be ''so'' anti-"goff", he'd send students to ''[[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]]'' for it.

* In ''Film/SkyHigh2005'', the titular school is divided between heroes and "hero support", also known as side-kicks, based solely on their powers at the time of enrollment. "Hero support" students are looked down on by pretty much everyone else, and outright bulled in most cases, in addition to their classroom being much smaller and poorly funded, and them not even having the privilege to choose their own hero names. The driving conflict of the film is the protagonist being sorted into Hero Support for not having a superpower.