She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. It was obscene.. Is it even possible today? Without telling the children the experiments purpose, Elliott demonstrated how easy it was to create abhorrent racist behavior based on students eye color, not skin color. 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 didnt need to engage with a single Black person. Do you think it is ethical to design your own baby through gene manipulation? How does one's personality influenced by a phenotype? What was the reason behind the Schachter affiliation study? After being treated like a member of the inferior group, students were less inclined to treat their peers that way. She noticed that student relationships had changed; even if students were friendly outside of the exercise, they treated each other with arrogance or bossiness once the roles were assigned. The day after Rev. One student said it was the equivalent of black people being called derogatory names. The results were the same. copyright 2003-2023 Homework.Study.com. As a journalism professor and author of a book on race that spans more than 50 years, Ive watched these developments with great concern. To get it started, she asked the children about which people they would perceive as lower class. All participants had an equal chance of taking part in any condition- Random Assignment to Condition-which increases the internal validity of the study. Back when she introduced the experiment to her Iowa students more than five decades ago, at least one student had the audacity to challenge Elliotts premise, according to those who were in the classroom at the time. According to the blue eyes brown eyes experiment, it is not a nice feeling to belong to the inferior group in society. What happened in A Class Divided? Change). To most people, it seemed to suggest that racism could be reduced, even eliminated, by a one- or two-day exercise. It was an unbelievable breach of trust. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. The roots of racism and why it continues unabated in America and other nations are complicated and gnarled. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. Did the Milgram experiment have long-term effects? Pasicznyk joined 75 other employees for a training session in the companys suburban Denver headquarters in the late 1980s. How is the blue eyes/brown eyes exercise related to the Sioux prayer, Help me not judge a person until I have walked in his shoes? The intention is to display ads that are relevant and engaging for the individual user and thereby more valuable for publishers and third party advertisers. Thats just the way blue-eyed kids were, Elliott told the students. Summarize Milgram's shock experiment in your own words. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. 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. Schedule a Visit On the first day, the blue-eyed students were informed that they were genetically inferior to the brown-eyed students. Why was the Robbers Cave experiment unethical? What is the difference between blue eyed and brown eyed students? Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. What event triggered Jane Elliotts blue eyes brown eyes exercise? 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 Do you feel that it was acceptable to scare the participants? And the exercise continued in a similar fashion to how it was executed the day before. Ethical. Jane Elliott at Riceville, Iowa, Elementary School in 1968. The students who had blue eyes were told that they were better and smarter than their inferior brown-eyed peers. Stripping away the veneer of the experiment, what was left had nothing to do with race. They killed hundreds of thousands of people based on eye color alone, thats the reason I used eye color for my determining factor that day., Elliott divided the class into children with blue eyes and children with brown eyes. It didnt take long for the children to turn on each other. Psychological Realism. On different days, one of the groups was given special treatment. Blue-eyed genes are generally recessive. She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism. I interviewed Julie Pasicznyk, who had been working for US West, a giant telecommunications company in Minneapolis. 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 being a minority. As a result of those divisions, you see racial discrimination or even terrorism. clas.uiowa.edu/students, Map & Directions Fourteen years later, the students featured in The Eye of the Storm reunited and discussed their experiences with Elliott. The teacher, Jane Elliot, inflated the "superior" students' grades as part of her experiment. Initially, the brown-eyed kids refused to believe her but she soon persuaded them by pretending that the higher levels of melanin associated with blue eyes were scientifically linked with greater . She selectively interprets behavior to confirm the stereotypes she had assigned by asking questions. We dont have to learn about those who are other than white. The minimal group paradigm has shaped an entire methodology in social psychology. Pasicznyk joined 75 other telecommunication employees for a training session that lasted three days in a Denver suburb during the mid-1980s. Jane Elliott first gave this lesson on April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. In the initial exercise, brown eyed students were allowed to. 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. Jane Elliott began by making brown-eyed kids wear collars in order to distinguish them from the blue-eyed ones. These differences lead to war and hate. Why are both identical and fraternal twins studied? They also harassed them constantly. The "superior" students were . Mrs. Janes purpose of the experiment was to solve a particular social problem of discrimination of minorities. Do you think it affects ethical concerns if the assignment is random? Voir les partenaires de TheConversation France. Applied Research. The nonstop parade of sickening events such as the murder of George Floyd surely is not going to be abated by a quickie experiment led by a white person for the alleged benefit of other whites as was the case with the blue-eyed, brown eyed experiment. On the contrary, the blue-eyed students played the role of the inferior group in the classroom. Why did people shock others in Stanley Milgram's experiment? The experiment was to be a division of eye colour starting with blue eyed student having superiority and then the following day, the roles would be reversed. In your view, does studying ethics lead to a better society? Give at least three different classes of reasons why we do a correlational study instead of an experiment. Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across websites. Blue-eyed people. Imagine that scientists were able to identify specific genes linked to serious criminal behavior and it was possible to remove or redesign these genes. I just discovered that PBS provides the entire documentary "A Class Divided" online. 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 . 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. While Elliott championed the experiment as an inoculation against racism, few I interviewed agreed with her. When Elliott conducted the exercise the next year, she added something extra to collect data. Brown eyes + blue eyes = 50% chance of blue eyes, but only if the brown-eyed parent carries a blue-eyed gene. Elliots discrimination create no-win situations for those placed in the inferior group because everyone were placed in that position giving no one to feel as if they were picked on. On the second day, Elliott switched the students roles. In 2004, Elliott invited me to write a biography of her. Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. How will this affect the interpretations and conclusions you can/can't make from the research data? Why is it important to study group behavior? How does color play into the placebo effect? The idea was simple but profound. You didnt understand the directions. After being treated like a member of the inferior group, students were less inclined to treat their peers that way. The purpose of this exercise was to put the kids in the same predicament as the colored and the people that is not colored. They needed not acknowledge their privilege or reflect on it. Two professors of education, Goodson and Sikes say that what Elliot did was unethical because the exercise was psychologically and emotionally damaging. Courtesy of AP Photo, by STEPHEN G. BLOOM | Iowa City, IA 52242-1409 Why Did Jane Elliott Choose Eye Color To Divide Her Students? Researchers later concluded that there was evidence that the students became less prejudiced after the study and that it was inconclusive as to whether or not the potential harm outweighed the benefits of the exercise. The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment is considered unethical since it caused psychological damage to the children who were pitted against one See full answer below. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. When I interviewed Riceville residents, mentioning Elliotts name generated outbursts of anger and anguish. She then proceeded to tell the class the brown-eyed children were superior to the blue-eyed children in every way because of the amount of melanin they had in their eyes. Do similar matrices have same singular values? The first thing that Jane Elliott did was divide the children into groups: those with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. Copyright Steadyprintshop.com 2023 Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliotts initial question to her students. The brown-eyed kids would now be considered inferior. How Should Societies Remember Their Sins. Jane Elliott on The Tonight Show on May 31, 1968. She instructed the blue-eyed kids not to play on the jungle gym or swings with the brown-eyed students. What can be changed to make the blue eyes and brown eyes experiment ethical according to the APA code of conduct? Many still see the students and the town itself as victims of a human experiment to which they had not consented. Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. The experiment is to help the children to understand about prejudice and discrimination. He teaches magazine reporting and writing, and media ethics in a digital age. Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment with her students that they would never forget. Droits d'auteur 20102023, The Conversation France (assoc. Twenty-nine percent of participants associated green eyes with sexiness, the top characteristic thought to be related to this color. The eyes remained motionless as a thin, graceful reflection sauntered up and came to a stop. But Elliotts experiment had a more sinister impact. The blue-eyed students wouldnt be allowed second helpings in the cafeteria. The students were surprised, but they didnt argue. Not only were they fewer in numbers, but the authority figure was against them. When she separated the class by eye color and announced that blue-eyed children were superior, Paul Bodensteiner objected at every turn. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous blue eyes/brown eyes exercise. As a school teacher in the small town of Riceville, Iowa, Elliott first conducted the anti-racism experiment on her all-white third-grade classroom, the day after the civil rights leader was killed. (LogOut/ She continued to conduct the exercise with her third graders. The brown-eyed children didnt want to play with the blue-eyes during recess. Initial Reaction to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Exercise. I want to know why youre so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others., The first reaction I get from teachers, who see this film or from hearing, hear me discuss what I do say to me How can you do that to these little children? It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . With this experiment she wanted to let the blue-eyed people (white people) feel how it is to be in low power position. Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. Explain. In fact, Elliott encouraged them, based on the childrens newly granted superiority or inferiority. The experience of being experimented upon, along with the fame (and money) her experiment earned for her, left hard feelings. Please tell us your thoughts. The mainstream media were complicit in advancing such a simplistic narrative. Even family members can turn against each other if some authority suddenly decides that those differences are a problem. During the 1970s and 1980s in the United States workshops such as Elliotts gained popularity in and out of the corporate world. It is an unflinching assessment of the incendiary experiment forever associated with Elliott, even though she was not the first to try it out. -After watching it, do you believe that the experiment is unethical and does more harm than good, or is the experiment done well and necessary . Elliotts coworkers avoided her after her appearance on The Tonight Show. On the first day of the two-day experiment, Elliott told the blue-eyed children that they were genetically inferior to the brown-eyed children. Define a phenotype? All rights reserved. In 2004, the American publishing giant, McGraw Hill, created a poster suitable for classroom display that included Elliott alongside other venerated thinkers and teachers, including Plato, Maria Montessori, Booker T. Washington, and Horace Mann. Those with green eyes are deemed adventurous. Unethical Experiments: Jane Elliott'sBlue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment-Adelle Dolik Summary of Experiment: After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Jane Elliott, a third-grade teacher in Iowa in 1968, decided to teach her students about society'sracial prejudice. Lasting Impact of Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment, Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. (LogOut/ According to the article is Jane Elliot's experiment to small degree effective. The story was then picked up by the Associated Press. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. A grammar school teacher in a recently integrated classroom in 1969. 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