Follow along with me :)
We've all seen it before- the jocks versus nerds dynamic. Those nerds are only competent at nerdy things- they get great grades in school, play video games or Magic the Gathering sorta thing, and are often out of shape, socially inept and totally weak. Meanwhile, the jocks excel at sports, social interactions and they throw all the parties, get all the girls, and dominate the natural selection process. On the downside, they are often portrayed as bullies and as intellectually inferior, and because they hate those labels they often take it out on the nerds. Worst of all, most of the times that they do, other kids join in on the abuse and ridicule of the victims, or simply choose not to help at all. For most people who lived that paradigm, it is impossible to imagine anything else. However, this paradigm is not omnipresent and there are many First and Second world countries (I define Second world countries as former or current Communist or Socialist countries) where entirely different paradigms reign supreme and this polarization either doesn't exist or is quite mild. As a result, much of the bullying and conflict caused by the nerd jock paradigm, as well as the lasting damage from that bullying, simply don't exist.
Let's look at a few reasons why these other places have different paradigms.
In some European countries, elementary and even high schools have subject that has nothing with studying, but you get marked in it nonetheless and it can bring down your average mark, thereby affecting your academic future if you mess it up. In some places, it's called Conduct and the grading scheme is the same as for any other course. If a student repeatedly goes to the principal's office for serious misconduct and it really adds up, he or she is written up and the Conduct grade is guaranteed to go down a certain percentage. If there is a single instance of truly violent behavior (physically or psychologically), that one instance is enough to bring down the Conduct grade as well. Therefore, kids begin to learn right from elementary school that gross misconduct, bullying and the like has real life consequences. Now, from what I heard, a lot of effort is put into mitigating things before a student gets graded down, as the teachers and the principal have to do the pedagogical aspect of their work rather than just use this system as a club with which to beat the students down into submission. Nevertheless, it's still used as a last resort option to discipline a student. As such, bullies are kept in check, and a class may get divided into cliques, but they are high discouraged from clashing in any seriously damaging way.
Another reason why jocks and nerds don't exist elsewhere in their classic format is because in many countries, especially European ones, kids still spend lots of time outside and are encouraged to get into sports since they're little- whether they're talented or not. Sports, martial arts and the like are very popular among all the kids, and you'll rarely find a kid that played no sports whatsoever. What I'm saying here is that when a society is passionate about sports and physical activity, nurture beats nature so that even the less athletic nerdy types can still hold their own in a game of soccer or basketball. On the other hand, there is also a passion for knowledge and learning so that the jock types are compelled to study harder despite the fact they have to get to basketball or soccer practice too. I think that this is possible because, if you cut screen and entertainment time, suddenly you can be both a good student and a great athlete- there's time to achieve both. This is why people I know who hail from different parts of Europe tell me they have at least a few classmates who totally excelled at both sports and their studies- the ultimate jock and nerd hybrid! I found that fascinating.
Finally, another reason why some of these countries don't seem to have these clashing cliques is because these countries are often nation states with a long history. What happens there is that kids are raised with stronger bonds among them as they recognize they share a uniform culture, similar heritage and so on. So, even if a class of kids wanted to have nerds and jocks who rip on each other all the time, there's no sense of unfamiliarity, there's no building of the enemy other because underneath all interactions are those strong bonds of collective belonging and shared heritage that takes a long time to build. I guess when you feel something that strong, you think twice before you go too far in how you interact with a fellow person, even if you're totally angry or out of it... Personally, I have my doubts about how effective this is because we live in a different world here in North America and don't internalize these things the same way, but if it works for them more times than not, good for them.
So there we have it, dearest readers- food for thought. What do you think? :)