"I think it's racist," he said of the divisive atmosphere brought to the surface two weekends ago by a series of post-basketball game brawls at Radford High School. At his school, "I hear a lot of name-calling, not just blacks and whites," he said, "but Japanese and Filipino and all that."

His basketball teammate Robert Morris, 17, who describes himself as a black-Hawaiian ethnic mix, would like to think that everyone can just get along.

Arguments erupt between classmates, but they're often quickly resolved, he said: "They end up eating lunch together."

Divisions between students do crop up, and they can lead to confrontations. Students form cliques, and one group may antagonize the other. In the process, students may be singled out by their race, how they dress or the friends they keep.

Recent fights at island high schools, including yesterday's at Nanakuli High and Intermediate School, put a spotlight on the issue. Radford, a school of many military dependents where blacks make up about 11 percent of the student body, made headlines last week with fights that started after a game the weekend before and continued at school last Tuesday. Some parents charged the fights were racially motivated.

Two days later, Honolulu police used pepper spray and arrested five students in an unrelated scuffle outside Waipahu High School, after a lunchtime quarrel between two girls apparently escalated after school, in a fight that grew to a crowd of about 30 people. And at Wai'anae High School Friday, an altercation between several students put the school on lockdown.

'Gossip and rumors'

"I don't believe there's racial tension (at my school). There's drama. That's normal." Kaylee Noborikawa | 17, senior at Kaiser High School

"If it's racism, it's all fun. We're just playing with each other." Robert Morris | 17, senior at Campbell High School

"There is no doubt that cliques play an important part of high school, even at my school (La Pietra), where there are only 27 seniors. While our class is pretty tight-knit, there are about three distinct groups. Because diversity is an integral aspect of our school, race doesn't seem to play any part." Catherine Ly | 17, senior at La Pietra-Hawaii School for Girls

"Girls fight more than guys." Andreas Shields | 14, freshman at Campbell High School

"Gossip and rumors — those are the two biggest causes of conflict among our youth," she said. "That and boyfriend/girlfriend issues."

One school that has used the mediation program successfully is Leilehua High School in Wahiawa, Wiltgen said.

Candace Wada, a peer mediation counselor at Leilehua, said that's because teens at the 1,800-student school have embraced the idea of solving problems themselves instead of letting them get out of hand. It starts with training students to act as peer problem-solvers. And Wada says it's probably one of the things that has contributed to improving the school's reputation.

"It just gives kids another option on how to resolve their problem," she said. "They know there's another place to go on campus."

Nationally, this idea is catching on, although "lessons of the heart are not always on the front burner," said Linda Lantieri, founding director of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program's national center in New York City.

"Very often, young people don't have other ways of dealing with conflict in their toolbox," she said, so these kinds of programs teach them to feel connected in school.

What makes a clique

After school in 'Ewa Beach last Thursday, cliques were on display as students emerged from Campbell High School. Basketball players got together at the Pizza Hut across the street. Others walked by in their own groups.

Cliques are defined by sports that students play and neighborhoods they're from, 15-year-old sophomore Royce Akiona said.

"It's not by race," he said. "It's where they live, where they cruise."

He and his friends say most of the disagreements at school are over rumors, romance and even divisions of groups that call themselves gangs. Mostly, though, everybody takes the fights away from school.

"There are programs and consequences," he said. "You get suspension or detention if you fight."

Schools are recognizing clique problems more than they used to, by waging anti-bullying campaigns and talking about the issues, said Carol Weston, a New York City author of such books as "Girltalk" (Perennial Currents, 2004) and "For Girls Only" (HarperTrophy, 2004).

She encourages principals and teachers to show from the start that they value kindness by recognizing good deeds.

"The basis of the whole thing behind cliques is the whole need all of us have to belong and feel secure," said Larry Koenig, a former family therapist in Baton Rouge, La., who lectures across the country about parenting and self-esteem and is the author of "Smart Discipline" (HarperCollins, 2002).

Most of the time, the hurt of being rejected by your peers is verbal, he said, so the best thing to do is to give those students a place to go where someone will listen.

Students and experts say cliques flourish in high school and fade out after graduation.

"Everyone has their groups — the Gothic kind and the surfer dudes," said Nicole Ogata, 17, a senior at Kaiser High School, which made security a priority after fighting surfaced several years ago. "It's stupid high-school stuff."

Reach Tanya Bricking Leach at tleach@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.