SCHOOL

D'ya wanna be in my gang?
Despite schools' efforts to integrate pupils from different racial, economic and social backgrounds, inner-city teenagers are still dividing themselves into tribes. Caroline Haydon reports

31 October 2002

It was the pale-blue collar with pointed metal spikes that did it. Until then I had tried to accommodate my daughter's attempts to keep up with the local gang. But now she wanted to lead the gang. And she had a chosen style – to me it seemed sub-punk – dog collars, spikes, "hoodies" proclaiming band names, baggy jeans and coloured hair. They called themselves grungers – not a term I recognised.

But my daughter was only 12. And her father and I drew the line at the pale-blue collar she'd bought at London's Camden Lock market, suggesting she might catch her chin on the spikes.

Recognise the description? The chances are that if you are a parent in London or the Home Counties or any major town, you will. Grungers and their avowed enemies, the townies or trendies (who favour different music and designer sports gear) have invaded our schools and imported into the classroom the fashion and idioms of the street – and some of its rowdier elements, too.

For those with children starting secondary school, it can be alarming. I wasn't the only parent to be taken aback by the extreme fashions and by the virulence of feeling between the groups. The children themselves can be shocked by the intensity of it all. And parents might mind very much which tribe their pre-teen or teenager chooses. As my daughter put it: "What tribe you are shows in how you dress, your attitudes towards life and school – whether you are disruptive or not – your accent, and how you perform. If you're a townie it's often cool not to do work or be sent out of class, so they can be disruptive in lessons."

But parents beware – all experiences are not the same. The tribe that is disruptive in one school might be on the side of the angels in another. One (anonymous) mother told me of her daughter Ellie's rocky introduction to gang life at her Home Counties mixed grammar. Ellie had fallen foul of a sub-group of grungers called goths, who wear black – black make-up, black clothes, black everything. "When she was younger it made her quite miserable," she says. "She felt uncomfortable. She had to be in her tribe – the trendies – to be safe, but she didn't really like it. She was in a class where there were a lot of goths and it preoccupied her for some time."

The crunch came when the goths scrawled "Die Ellie Taylor" on her desk. "I'd never had anyone take against me for no reason and it shocked me," she said. "The goths would be quite horrible to us, and shout stuff, and say we thought we were cool and cocky." Ellie's is a mixed school. Tensions between the groups are greater when girls are involved, she says.

My daughter, today nearly 14, and at a girls-only London comprehensive, agrees. But she and her friend Lizzie now speak with the casual insouciance of worldly-wise Year Niners, and they've got some good news for parents who think this is a lasting phase. "For the young ones it's a really big issue," says Lizzie. "But by Year 10 it's probably dying out – definitely by Year 11."

That's lucky, because for the comprehensives, with their wider social intake, it doesn't look as though the gangs are good news. Just when you thought a comprehensive could succeed at integrating pupils from every race or class background, along comes a social trend that positively obstructs that aim.

So at my daughter's school, the girls may proclaim that they have, as one put it "got beyond colour to music" (ie the music they listen to defines their allegiances), but it is clear that the tribes do split along racial lines. Muslim girls are usually well liked and seen as belonging to a group of their own – this is reported in other London schools, too. It's difficult to adopt the grunge style if you are wearing a head dress, and even if you're not, girls of Muslim and/or Asian background are not seen as great tribalists.

But everyone else faces a more difficult choice, to do with popularity as much as safety, as in Ellie's case. "There are go-betweens and outsiders, but if you're a go-between you may not be popular," says my daughter. Lizzie nods. "If you want to be noticed you have to be in one group or another." Incredibly, there are even, in this highly stratified society, two types of go-betweens , the semi-popular and the outcasts, this last unfortunate group comprising those who are deemed misfits because of their lack of attention to personal hygiene, or more cruelly, their size or shape.

In the inner city it seems the choices are often made according to colour, with the black girls opting for the townies set and the white girls, largely, being the grungers. Grungers are also seen as more middle class. "The grungers are middle class and trying to look cool and scruffy and streetwise," says Lizzie. "The townies are more working class and they hate to look scruffy. But," she adds, just as you thought you were getting the hang of it, "the townies can be rough and the trendies posh."

So is any of this new? The clinical psychologist Oliver James has just published a book, They F*** You Up, dealing, among other things, with peer groups. In it he comes down firmly on the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate, and is pretty convinced that this is all a continuation of a very old story.

James claims that the tribes reinforce behaviour that we've derived from our relationships with our parents. It's those relationships that determine the sort of peers you seek out. According to this reading a number of teenagers will come through a parenting experience that will cause them to be antisocial. The tribal apparel, lingo or style is a signal to others that they can join in, not a cause of the problem.

"Where any teenagers are gathered there will be subgroups. At that age you are trying to define yourself over and above what your parents or class dictates, trying to define your identity," he says. "Paradoxically, in your attempt to be an individual you find your identity through other groups."

And girls experience all this more intensely. "Appearance is a matter of great importance to all teenagers but, despite feminism, girls still gain a considerable amount of self- and peer-esteem through appearance."

So far, so run-of-the-mill, then. It's tough being a parent. But if you're worried, take heart. It is only a phase.