highschoolhaze

by Hank Nuwer

Initiations used to consist of putting on sillyclothing, wearing garish makeup, sporting handmade signs, or doing errands.For example, new members of the Future Farmers of
America (FFA), a national organization in manyschools where students have a farming background, sometimes have to weara drawing of a green hand around the neck to show
new-convert status. (The national FFA prohibitshazing).

In another example, a rookie football player inNew York state was taped head to foot. Increasingly, however, these storiesof non-criminal hazing have been replaced by acts
most observers would regard as cruel and dangerous.

At this time, unlike the most severe college hazing incidents, high school hazing is rarely deadly. However, a number of close calls lately have made educators afraid that high
school initiations could evolve into deadlierforms. This has led to increased efforts to make junior high and high schoolstudents aware of potential dangers.

Hazing at the high school level sometimes involves dangerous alcohol consumption, paddlings, or savage beatingsÑwhich could easily cause permanent injury or death.
Forty-two states with antihazing laws now banthese activities as criminal hazing, though some states such as Virginiarequire proof of physical injury before police officers can make an arrest

THE NEED TO BE ACCEPTED

What is the purpose of hazing? Remember that all groups need to induct new members or risk dying out. Hazing reassures senior members that the new people value
membership in the group. Members willing to gainacceptance through hazing may be logically a little less likely to changethe old organization the senior members know and
love.

In fact, a new group member who refuses to accept hazing is usually (although unfairly) considered a deviant, according toresearchers in group behavior. And through the
socialization process students go through inthe elementary grades, they grow increasingly less likely to interveneto help someone else in a crisis situationÑparticularly if group
members are picking on a single individual. Studies have also shown this to be the case when police officers in a group canÕt seem to stop beating someone.

Furthermore, new people who refuse to be initiatedÑeven if they find the activity repulsiveÑoften feel uncomfortable, seeing themselves as abnormal. It may be hard for a high
school administrator or parent to understandwhy this is so, but people have a need to be accepted and valued by theirpeers. "All of us are very hungry for that sort of thing,"
said group psychologist Irving L. Janis in aninterview with the author before JanisÕs death.

People outside a groupÑhaving no need tobelongÑmay find it hard to understand why newcomers to a group craveacceptance from insiders to such a degree. The urge to
belong is powerful. In high schools where popularity is particularly valued, there should be little surprise that nonmembersmight envy the status members possess. "If I can only
join this group," the newcomer things, "thenothers will envy me."

A CLIMATE WHERE HAZING FLOURISHES

Why does hazing flourish in so many high schools? It may have something to do with the fundamental drawbacks of the U.S.educational system, which is charged with serving
the needs of a great many young people.

Some social critics see inevitable clashes inhigh schools, where the values of thoughtful individualsÑstudentsand teachersÑcollide with the values, or lack of them, in a
mass-market culture.

Edgar Friedenberg, author of Coming of Age inAmerica, writes that adolescence is a rich time full of opportunity, whenteenagers should celebrate their uniqueness. Instead,
many high schools act as an extension of thelarger "manipulative mass culture," which can blot out originality in youngpeople.

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