Learning one’s place in the community is an important function of the school experience. Along with reading and spelling, children are tutored (implicitly and explicitly) in gender roles and sexual mores. Investigators have demonstrated that social class determines how children are treated. For example, children from middle-class families receive more praise and are treated in a less arbitrary manner by teachers (Jackson, Clark, & Hemmons, 1991). Gender and ethnic background also influence school experiences, especially for girls. Kistner, Metzler, Gatlin, and Risi (1993) found that racial minority status for girls was particularly likely to result in peer rejection. Indeed, Carol Beal (1994) discusses the “hidden curriculum,” that is, the formal and informal strategies occurring in schools to formally and informally lead children to behave in stereotyped ways.
The sexual socialization of girls is seriously impacted by their expe riences at school and with peers. Most children are introduced to a regular association with same age children through school attendance. From pre school through adolescence, children maintain a number of gender segregated activities (Maras & Archer, 1997; Sandberg & Meyer-Bahlburg, 1994). The choice of same sex playmates persists through grade school with girls and boys interacting on a rather sporadic basis. Thome (1986) refers to the intermittent contact between boys’ and girls’ groups as “border work.” He suggests that children create clear boundaries between girls and boys by acting as though contact with the other sex is forbidden and dangerous. The children can then create a type of excitement by raiding the enemy territory. Thome suggests that these forays are preparatory for later adolescent romantic behavior and they operate in a way that minimizes prematurely extended contacts between the sexes.