Socially rejected students are actively excluded for long periods of time by many of their peers at school and are often the recipients of verbal or physical abuse. Although most consideration of this problem has focused on rejected students, social rejections could be considered as a group phenomenon, determined by the structure of the social environment and the emotional and intellectual development of the rejectors. Rejected students, regardless of their specific characteristics, have one trait in common: they are different from their peers. Models used to explore the reasons that students reject deviants focus on: (1) imitation; (2) developmental factors; (3) the authoritarian personality; (4) group solidarity; and (5) intergroup conflict. Although different models may explain rejection in different schools, the rejection of peers appears to be an inherent part of social development and the structure of the school social environment. Teachers and school personnel may mitigate some of the physical and verbal abuse the rejected student faces by helping other students to realize that when they reject a peer, they are rejecting a person with feelings. Emphasis must shift from the rejected student to the process of rejection itself. (NRB)