This is made evident by our survey results when we see how much ambivalence there is about lying. Roughly a third of our sample wonders whether honesty is always the best policy when it conflicts with self-interest. School policies generally hold all participants in fights equally responsible, with no regard for who may have been the aggressor. At least a third of our respondents, however, seem to believe that fighting sometimes may be justified. In practice, it is very difficult for school administrators to determine who started a fight and who acted solely in self-defense.
Educators recognize that peer-group pressures are especially powerful with regard to fighting.
Even so, the need to keep our schools safe justify current school policies in the eyes of most of those who work in the schools, and in the eyes of most students as well. In our very heterogeneous society, it is not surprising that tolerance for those who are different in some way is a very strongly held value among our respondents. Our public schools, more than any other social institution, have taken on the repsonsibility for teaching and reinforcing this value. It never will be possible to eliminate all the friction that arises among disparate groups, but teachers are committed to the goal of increasing harmony and mutual understanding.