This report of some aspects of a five-year ethnographic study of the relation between youth cultures, attitudes to school, and the transition from school concentrates on the significance of sport, especially rugby football, in the formation of a youth cultural hierarchy. The top, held by an Anglo-Saxon—Celtic based footballer group, was challenged by Greek boys contesting the dominant definition of Australian nationality, both groups dominating others lower in the hierarchy. To facilitate teacher—student communication and social control, some staff formed a ‘sporting coalition’ with students which, while it promoted school unity by consolidating common cause against other schools, reinforced the hierarchy and tended to compromise liberal and multicultural objectives pursued in the school.
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