On Monday, Elliott reversed the exercise, and the brown-eyed kids were told how shifty, dumb and lazy theywere. The roots of racism and why it continues unabated in America and other nations are complicated and gnarled. Today, increased migration means more opportunities for people from different backgrounds to interact with each other, which is often a source of conflict. You can contribute to that positive change by watching the documentary. Why was the Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment considered unethical in psychology? In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. The hate and discrimination that we see in adults have their origin in their upbringing. She asked her students, who were all white, whether or not they knew what it felt like to be judged by the color of their skin. The demonstration has since been taught by generations of teachers to millions of kids across the country. 10 Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today. "It would be hard to know, wouldn't it, unless we actually experienced discrimination ourselves. Two years later, a BBC documentary captured the experiment in Elliott's classroom. Blue Eye/Brown Eye is an experiment performed by Jane Elliot in 1968 on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated to demonstrate what prejudice was to her third grade class. I interviewed Julie Pasicznyk, who had been working for US West, a giant telecommunications company in Minneapolis. The exercise is "an inoculation against racism," she says. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, Elliott had a talk with her students about diversity and racism. Her bold experiment to teach Iowa third graders about racial prejudice divided townspeople and thrust her onto the national stage. She believed that experience was the only way her students could understand how it felt like to be discriminated. This way, she successfully created two distinct groups in her classroom: The consequences of the minimal group became evident very quickly. The next day, Jane made it known to the students that she had made a mistake and that the brown-eyed pupils were better and smarter than their counterparts. Blue-eyed students slumped in their chairs, as though . Retrieved from https://speedypaper.com/essays/ethical-concerns-in-jane-elliots-experiment, Free essays can be submitted by anyone, so we do not vouch for their quality. In 1968, schoolteacher Jane Elliott decided to divide her classroom into students with blue eyes and students with brown eyes. Would you like to find out? The blue-eyed children were told not to do their homework because, even if they answered all the questions, theyd probably forget to bring the assignment back to class. In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. Youve probably heard different versions of it. Brian, the Elliotts' oldest son, got beaten up at school, and Jane called the ringleader's, mother. One of the blue eyed even went to hit a brown eyed just for the fact that he was brown eyed. Blue Eyed versus Brown Eyed Students Jane Elliott was not a psychologist, but she developed one of the most famously controversial exercises in 1968 by dividing students into a blue-eyed group and . Elliot wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). . This is the phrase that inspired one of the most well-known experiments in education. The children said yes, and the exercise began. Kellen Castineiras PSY Dr. Gail C. Flanagan February 6, 2022. . a brown-eyed boy asked. As Elliott recalls, she engineered the "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise" in 1968 after watching the late-night news cycle announce the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Rather than be deterred by possible The fact that children are easy to manipulate into acting in a particular manner explains Jane's choice of sample. ", For years scholars have evaluated Elliott's exercise, seeking to determine if it reduces racial prejudice in participants or poses a psychological risk to them. One of the ways Hitler decided who went into the gas chamber was eye color, Elliott said in a later speech. One example that has been in place for many years is the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment. The blue eyes brown eyes study was a study on group prejudice and discrimination conducted by Jane Elliot. Is it even possible today? It is a must . But in reality, I found in researching for my book Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes that the experiment was a sadistic exhibition of power and authority levers controlled by Elliott. If you had a good German name, but you had brown eyes, they threw you into the gas chamber because they thought you might be a Jewish person who was trying to pass. Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. "Why?" Proceeding with the experiment, Elliot divided the children into two groups each with nine pupils. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. Elliott championed the experiment as an inoculation against racism., [The Conversations Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Kors writes that Elliott's exercise taught "blood-guilt and self-contempt to whites," adding that "in her view, nothing has changed in America since the collapse of Reconstruction." Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes 1968 - Jane Elliot, grade school teacher in Iowa conducted a classroom experiment to test whether racism was a learned characteristic Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes - an experiment to "create racism" Jane Elliot divided her 4th grade class into two groups based on eye color The Brown eyed group were told they were superior due . Initial Reaction to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Exercise. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. Thats what it feels like when youre discriminated against., -A child participant in the Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes experiment-. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. She split the class in two categories, according to eye color, and told the children that one group was superior to the others. "No person of any age [was] going to leave my presence with those attitudes unchallenged," Elliott said. Melanin, she said, is what causes intelligence. I got to have five minutes extra of recess." Racism is not genetical. Role Theory: Expectations, Identities, and Behaviors. She was a standing-room-only speaker at hundreds of colleges and universities. Right off the bat, she picked me out of the room and called me Barbie, Pasicznyk told me. Malinda Whisenhunt? "Let me look at you," Elliott said. ", We backed out. "She taught in this school for 18 years." . . APA principles acknowledge that individuals rights to privacy, self-determination, and confidentiality is paramount to all psychological activities. And you'll always have it. From Elliot's highly controversial experiment it is clear that prejudice and discrimination can only be understood through experience. She has spoken at more than 350 colleges and universities. "Blue-eyed people sit around and do nothing. In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Jane Elliott devised the controversial and startling, "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise." This, now famous, exercise labels participants as inferior or superior based solely upon the color of their eyes and exposes them to the experience of . Jane Elliot's experiment involves cheating and intentional misinterpretation of facts. "Mention two wordsJane Elliottand you get a flood of emotions from people," says Jim Cross, the Riceville Recorder's editor these days. "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. Order original essays online. She told her students that she had made a mistake the previous day and that brown-eyed students . New York: Elsevier Science. Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. Almost immediately, it was apparent that she had created segregation and prejudice given that the blue-eyed students began exhibiting signs of dominion and superiority. Jane would get invited to go to Timbuktu to give a speech. On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . What Was the Purpose of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? If you are the original author of this essay and no longer wish to have it published on the Even though some of the children said yes, Elliott pushed back. Additionally, the brown-eyed students got to sit in the front of the class, while the blue-eyed kids . The blue-eyed students, when told they were superior and offered privileges such as extra recess time, changed their behavior dramatically and their attitudes toward the children with brown eyes. Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes experiment was a turning point in social psychology. The results showed a . Some people feel we can't move on when you have her out there hawking her 30-year-old experiment. Knowing that her experiment would have consequences, Jane remained committed to her course. The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. ( 1985-03-26) " A Class Divided " is a 1985 episode of the PBS series Frontline. They embraced the experiments reductive message, as well as its promised potential, thereby keeping the implausible rationale of Elliotts crusade alive and well for decades, however flawed and racist it really was. The blue eyes and brown eyes experiment According to supporters of Elliott's approach, the goal is to reach people's sense of empathy and morality. Articles and opinions on happiness, fear and other aspects of human psychology. 2012 2023 . The selection was based on the color of the eye for each group. The musical is about romance, but it integrates issues of race and discrimination (Norris, 2014), and the song is about how discrimination is taught carefully, in long term. When she went downtown to do errands, she heard whispers. I felt mad. Grey eyes are also a rare eye color. Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes offers an intimate portrait of the insular community where Elliott grew up and conducted the experiment on the town's children for more than a decade. In a similar vein, Linda Seebach, a conservative columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, wrote in 2004 that Elliott was a "disgrace" and described her exercise as "sadistic," adding, "You would think that any normal person would realize that she had done an evil thing. "How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children," one said. She has . The students started to internalize, and accept, the characteristics they'd been arbitrarily assigned based on the color of their eyes. The experiment, known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment, is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. As the morning wore on, brown-eyed kids berated their blue-eyed classmates. With a couple of basic and arbitrary examples, Elliott made the case that brown-eyed people were better. . On Thursday, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN. ", Elliott says the role of a teacher is to enhance students' moral development. March 26, 1985. When Elliott conducted the exercise the next year, she added something extra to collect data. She asks them if they have ever faced treatment like the type that blue-eyed people would experience in the following two and a half hours. ", Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise, 'I See These Conversations As Protective': Talking With Kids About Race. "They are cleaner and they are smarter.". Two students even got into a physical altercation. Did they know what it was like to be discriminated against? people are better than blue-eyed people. Answer (1 of 3): My guess is that is doesn't really represent racism but classism. The children were not aware of the experiment, and therefore they could not give their permission of involvement. Now, almost four decades later, Elliott's experiment still mattersto the grown children with whom she experimented, to the people of Riceville, population 840, who all but ran her out of town, and to thousands of people around the world who have also participated in an exercise based on the experiment. She continued to conduct the exercise with her third graders. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Dick DeMarsico/New York World-Telegram & the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection/PhotoQuest/Getty Images, Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, Committee Member - MNF Research Advisory Committee, PhD Scholarship - Uncle Isaac Brown Indigenous Scholarship. It's the Jane Elliott machine. Immediately after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Professor Jane Elliott used the minimal group paradigm to perform an experiment that would teach her students about race discrimination. In the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Elliott developed a simple exercise that explored the nature of racism and prejudice.. Elliott's method for exploring racism in the context of an all-white classroom consisted of dividing her students into two groups on the basis of eye color, blue or brown (those with other eye colors were assigned to the group . Below, . The killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, was a seismic event, a turning point that compelled many Americans to do something and do it with urgency. The May 25 killing of George Floyd set off weeks of nationwide protests over the police abuse and racism against black people, plunging the U.S. into a reckoning of racial inequality. The blue eyes/brown eyes experiment, which could last one to three days, was at a glance similar to other human-potential-movement workshops of the era, including Werner Erhard's est training . In Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues That Teach Kids to Do the Right Things, educational psychologist Michele Borda says it "teaches our children to counter stereotypes before they become full-fledged, lasting prejudices and to recognize that every human being has the right to be treated with respect." 980 Words. View Module 2 Discussion_ Are We Still Divided_ Blue Eyes_Brown Eyes_ A 3rd Grade Lesson for Us All.pdf from HUMN 330 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue-eyed kids to wear one. They gossiped about her in the hallway. It was the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968 that Elliott ran her first "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise in her Riceville, Iowa classroom. he asked. One of the main ones was the fact that their right to withdraw was taken away from them. Elliott was featured on nearly every national news show in America for decades. She would conduct the exercise for the nine more years she taught the third grade, and the next eight years she taught seventh and eighth graders before giving up teaching in Riceville, in 1985, largely to conduct the eye-color exercise for groups outside the school. The 1970s and 1980s were ripe for diversity education in the private and public sectors, and Elliott would try out the experiment at workshops on tens of thousands of participants, not just in the U.S. and Canada, but in Europe, the Middle East and Australia. Elliott asked. Subsequent research designed to gauge the efficacy of Elliotts attempt at reducing prejudice showed that many participants were shocked by the experiment, but it did nothing to address or explain the root causes of racism. "They shot that King yesterday. Need an original essay on Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment? Jane Elliott's experiment. In the early morning, dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying stalks that surround Riceville the way water surrounds an island. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. You give them something nice and they just wreck it." Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. ", A former teacher, Ruth Setka, 79, said she was perhaps the only teacher who would still talk to Elliott. The idea was simple but profound. Elliott was even brought on The Tonight Show to talk about her experiences. She has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" five times. A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third-graders about racism. In the 60th year beyond Brown vs. Board of Education, Frontline is making available their classic 1985 documentary, " A Class Divided ," about the experiment and what happened later. Jane Elliott, one of the most controversial figures in U.S. education and diversity training, began her journey to international acclaim in Riceville, Iowa. With this experiment she wanted to let the blue-eyed people (white people) feel how it is to be in low power position. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. While controversial, the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be one of the most well-known and praised learning exercises in the world of educational psychology. Throughout the investigation, the classroom represented a real-life scenario in which the unprivileged and minority members of the society are treated as out-groups making them susceptible to discrimination. Advertising Notice The episode features with new footage of the students, who are now adults. Regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, decision making in psychology should protect individual rights and welfare to eliminate potential biases. But they returned to a better placeunlike a child of color, who gets abused every day, and never has the ability to find him or herself in a nurturing classroom environment." The Blue Eyes & Brown Eyes Exercise. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. "People of other color groups seem to understand," she said. The results were the same. The answer, in a word, was nothing. From the moment the experiment begins, Jane Elliott uses a mean tone to speak to the participants. Once indoors, the brown-eyed group was then treated to coffee and doughnuts, while the blue-eyed group could only stand around and wait.
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