That's why I used (and qualified!) the term 'egalitarian', which has a precise meaning that encompasses that point. I should also point out that high schools are a bit different since they do have some incredibly rigid formal hierarchies and they exist within an incredibly hierarchical society, so the students reproduce much of what they've learned from outside. If you want a good summary of academic thought on how egalitarian societies worked, Ken Ames' chapter The Archaeology of Rank has a decent lit review.
Can you explain the meaning of egalitarian you are using in this context? Unless you said it somewhere else I don't think you provided me with a definition.
I find that, at least in an American context, the idea that we live in an "incredibly hierarchical society" to be dubious at best. I am by no means saying that we have no formal hierarchies, but there is there is too much indivualism to describe that hierarchy as 'strict'.
The chapter I referenced by Ken Ames includes a whole definition section, which in turn cites the classic definition by Morton Fried:
1) Everyone has access to the necessities of life and
2) Equal access to positions of prestige, which don't confer dominance over others
That's typically contrasted with so-called "ranked societies", which are on the farther end of lacking one or both of these. Without getting too political or making value judgements, "American society" has both severely unequal access to the necessities of life (e.g. I can afford housing in the bay area as a tech worker, but others cannot) as well as positions of prestige and dominance over others that are not reciprocal (e.g. Uber CEO vs Uber SWEs vs Uber drivers).
