Effects Of Jane Elliott's Experiment

Racial discrimination has a great impact on people of various races. Throughout the past generations, many people have faced discrimination because of the way that they look. People have been hated, beaten, killed and made fun of. Many people have been put down because of the way that they look. Adults, teens and even children began thinking less of themselves after the incidents. Many African Americans started considering themselves inferior to whites, which lead them to perform worse in school and daily activities. Looking at the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the video experiment Brown Eyes and Blue Eyes performed by Jane Elliott, it is evident that African Americans faced discrimination for hundreds of years, which lead them to consider themselves inferior amongst all other people.

On the first day of the experiment, the blue-eyed children, or the in-group, were told they were superior to the brown eyed children, the out-group. On top of being told they were better and smarter than the brown-eyed children, the out-group was not allowed to drink from the same fountain, play together at recess, or go back for seconds at lunch-time. The brown eyed children received less recess time, had to wait to go to lunch, and wore collars for easy recognition.

Everyone is likely to experience some form of discrimination or prejudice; as is anyone capable of acting prejudiced towards others. On April 5th, 1968, a teacher in Riceville, Iowa named Jane Elliot conducted an experiment with her third grade class that dealt with the concept of discrimination; and was documented in Peters’ 1985 ‘A Class Divided’. The exercise originally took place the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated. The documentary is an eye opener to the world of racism and discrimination. Bucher (2010) describes racism as “discrimination based on the belief that one race is superior to another” (97). According to Bucher (2010) “discrimination is defined as the

In a powerful experiment we were able to see through the eyes of a kindergarten children prejudice dynamics. In a famous experience by Jane Elliot she separated her class between blue-eyed and brown-eyed students. Professor Elliot had separated her students by making one eye group inferior to the other making them have certain benefits and better treatment than the other group of students. Eventually, the students were switched the following day. This experiment have showed this group of kindergarten students how colors and discrimination affected the minority population. After this successful experiment with the kindergarten student’s professor Jane Elliot had done many other experiments using adults using the a similar technique blue-eyed

One of the most thought-provoking issues raised in The New Jim Crow is the concept of colorblindness, and how Martin Luther King’s call to create a society where people are not "judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" has been badly distorted by

It was the day after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, April 5th, 1968, when third grade teacher, Jane Elliott conducted her first “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise in her classroom. Just two years later, her class project went viral, and she drew national attention when ABC broadcasted her story in a documentary, Eye of the Storm. After researching Elliott further, I discovered that her simple role playing exercise surely changed her life, and this publication kick charged her equality campaign in which she continues to advocate for today by crusading throughout North America and delivering lectures about the realities of discrimination.

In watching the video Jane Elliot specifically separated the class by eye color Blue eyed meaning that you were better smarter and appreciated more in society and brown eyed meaning you were less than, not a good person, and not as smart as a blue-eyed person. And one of students was subjective to that because one his parents was brown eyed and he didn't quite understand why was his dad being labeled as less because of his eye color. The kids quickly recognized that brown eyed people were labeled as bad people and people who are flat out bad. One of the students who was labeled as brown eye immediately felt the treatment of not be treated equally and being put down based upon his eye color.

She wanted to give each student a clear understating how it feels on both sides of the pole. The students immediately turned on their friends, both days, when they were told one eye color group was better than the other. Eliot’s experiment showed how kids are taught racism and how it only took 24hours. She gave them pre-test and post-test that showed that on the days the students with the superior eye color were treated better they scored higher while the secondary students tested poorly. The results were the same for both days. According to Matthew E. Lemberger and Tamiko Lemberger-Truelove, authors of Using the Transcultural Adlerian Conceptualization and Therapy (TACT) Model to Depict the Influence of Race-Based Trauma (2016) they agree with Courtney Heldreth et al., University of California, Los Angeles (2016), on their point that racism causes medical and mental issues on person wellbeing. Lemberger and True-lover notes racism can be seen as traumatic for a person and their growth (Lemberger and True-love, 2016 p.3) whereas Courtney Heldreth et al. claims that postpartum depression symptoms were partially mediated by everyday experience with racism (Heldreth et al, 2016 p.3).

She told her students that the blue-eyed students were superior to their brown-eyed friends. Within minutes, the way the two groups of students acted towards one another changed. Ms. Elliot, their teacher, started calling the blue-eyed division of the group “better and smarter” than their brown-eyed equivalents. She continued this by giving them more opportunities than the brown-eyed students. For example, they recieved seconds at lunch, as well as, extra time at recess. A blue-eyed student also went on to say, “You better keep the art stick close, [Ms. Elliot] in case you need to use it.” He meant to use it to punish a brown-eyed classmate. Once the teacher changed her views, the students did too. The students did not want to be different, so they followed their leader's example. Even though this part of the experiment only took place for a day, it seemed like it had occurred for a while. This is a great example of how once a leader changes his/her point of view, it’s followers will do the same, so they will not be seen as different or an

Mrs. Elliot divided her all white elementary class by eye color. There was a “brown eyes” and “blue eyes” group, which made each group superior or inferior to each other. Mrs. Elliot performed the experiment, because she wanted to teach her students about racism and discrimination that was going on in the county, which was a major responded to the shooting of Martin Luther King in April 1968.Since Mrs. Elliot already divided her student by eye color. I think another way she could’ve divided her class is by hair color and

On April 5, 1968 Jane Elliott changed the lives of her third grade class. She was attempting to simply teach the children about racial prejudice, however a much greater impact was made. In her exercise called the Brown Eye Blue Eye experiment, the children in her classroom with blue eyes were given armbands to wear to signify their eye color while the brown-eyed children remained normal. Then the children were told that everyone with brown eyes was better, and that “they were cleaner and smarter.” Soon enough, the children with brown eyes were degrading the blue-eyed children for no other reason than they were told since they have brown eyes they were better.

After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr a school teacher in Iowa devised an experiment that would give participants first-hand experience of discrimination. Jane Elliott’s experiment will be evaluated in this essay as well as analysing the impacts of her experiment. Additionally, this essay will identify the ethical challenges of such an experiment and how Elliott alleviated those ethical concerns where possible. Elliott’s two day social experiment challenged the participants, 8 and 9 year old children, to understand how it feels to be discriminated against.

In Jane Elliot's Blue/ Brown Eyes experiment, what was shown a lot in this video was discrimination. The reason being is because half the kids were getting treated unfairly than the other half of the kids in the class because of the color of their eyes. They were getting bullied by people with the "superior" eyes, they got longer recesses, and they were allowed to get seconds for lunch. Discrimination is all about action and the unequal, unjust, and unfair treatment that discrimination entails is getting put into action against these kids. Racism also plays a part in this even though the kids were all of the same race.

In the movie A Class Divided directed by William Peters, a teacher decides to a daring experiment where she decided to treat children with blue eyes as superior to children with brown eyes. Blue eyed children were allow privileges that the brown eyed children were not allowed. The blue eyed children took upon their power to become a mean-spirited and discriminate the brown eyed children. Having power changes a person, making them selfish and cruel to other people below them. In the play The Tragedy of Macbeth written by William Shakespeare, Macbeth is given a prophecy where he becomes king.

First off, people with blue eyes were considered “superior” to the brown-eyed people. When they were separated by eye color, there were often times were the blue-eyed people would make fun of the brown-eyed people. Due to the separation, they also treated each other very poorly just because of their eye color. When it came to academics, the brown-eyed people were always behind and not as smart even though this might not have been the case. Just because they were brown-eyed, they were dumb and wouldn’t be able to succeed academically.