Read More, In case of sale of your personal information, you may opt out by using the link Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes is a meticulously researched book that details for the first time Jane Elliotts jagged rise to stardom. Jane Elliot . Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. Iowa City, IA 52242-1409 Youve probably heard different versions of it. 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. Jane Elliot was a third-grade teacher in Riceville, Iowa when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. She has since refused to answer any of my inquiries. The day after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in 1968, Jane Elliott, a schoolteacher in rural Iowa, introduced to her all-white third-grade class a shocking . Applied Research. Blue-eyed people are seen as being the most expressive. Not everyone appreciated Elliotts exercise. In this article, we'll explain what happened during the experiment and discuss its consequences. This is the phrase that inspired one of the most well-known experiments in education. What aspects of power does the Milgram experiment address? Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. The blue-eyes group was discriminated against while the people with brown eyes were treated with respect. What are the ethical implications of using a true experimental study? The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise is now known as the inspiration for diversity training in the workplace, making Jane Elliott one of the most influential educators in recent American history. 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. Given we can make causal claims from experiments and not from correlational studies, why don't we just experiment all the time? By the mid-1980s, Elliott had retooled herself as a New Age visionary. Is there a radio station that plays calm music? She instructed the brown-eyed children to heckle and berate the blue-eyed students, even to start fights with them. Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes offers an intimate portrait of the insular community where Elliott grew up and conducted the experiment on the towns children for more than a decade. Why do you believe that researchers would want to see if there is a correlation rather than just fully testing each variable? 120 Schaeffer Hall They didnt need to engage with a single Black person. They don't replace the diagnosis, advice, or treatment of a professional. Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. Ethical Research: Ethical research safeguards the person's best interest and well-being. After becoming aware of their differences, students became more likely to self-segregate into their own groups. The brown-eyed children wear fabric collars so they can be identified from a distance. That was part of convincing the students that the experiment was real. The students were surprised, but they didnt argue. A Class Divided portrays the reunion of a group of students who had taken part in a bold experiment in 1970. Nobodys standing here. With this experiment she wanted to let the blue-eyed people (white people) feel how it is to be in low power position. The documentary has become a popular teaching tool among teachers, business owners, and even employees at correctional facilities. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle the exercise and would be seriously damaged by the exercise. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. Do similar matrices have same singular values? Is it even possible today? What types of genetic testing do you think should be allowed? Give an example of a quasi experimental design in psychology and explain it's strengths, weaknesses and any ethical concerns involved. Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes experiment was a turning point in social psychology. Children are able to understand discrimination and its negative consequences. The experiment is to help the children to understand about prejudice and discrimination. You can contribute to that positive change by watching the documentary. The blue-eyed students wouldnt be allowed second helpings in the cafeteria. It is an unflinching assessment of the incendiary experiment forever associated with Elliott, even though she was not the first to try it out. Children often fight, argue, and sometimes hit each other, but this time they were motivated by eye color. Now, people are returning to her work. I interviewed Julie Pasicznyk, who had been working for US West, a giant telecommunications company in Minneapolis. Melanin, which determines eye color, also determines intelligence and learning ability. The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliotts initial question to her students. They needed not acknowledge their privilege or reflect on it. She manipulated us, recalled Sandy Juettner, another US West employee enrolled in a workshop. Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes is a meticulously researched book that details for the first time Jane Elliott's jagged rise to stardom. The teacher, Jane Elliot, inflated the "superior" students' grades as part of her experiment. She gave all of the students simple spelling and math tests two weeks before the exercise, on the days of the exercise, and after the exercise. The website cannot function properly without these cookies. What ethical standards did the Monster Study violate? She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, Elliott had a talk with her students about diversity and racism. Overall, the blue eye brown eye experiment was a powerful and eye-opening study that helped to shed light on the damaging effects of discrimination and prejudice. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. Brown-eyed people, she told the students, are smarter, more civilized and better than blue-eyed people. According to some studies, there is a slight difference in vision capabilities between people with light and dark colored eyes. She wanted to show her pupils what discrimination feels like, and what it can do to people. In fact, most of the initial response was negative. As a result, Elliott would go on to appear on Johnny Carsons Tonight Show, followed by a stormy White House conference, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and thousands of media events and diversity-training sessions worldwide, during which she employed the provocative experiment to induce racism. She selectively interprets behavior to confirm the stereotypes she had assigned by asking questions. Elliotts coworkers avoided her after her appearance on The Tonight Show. Welcome to a godforsaken spit of land in the middle of the ocean, where 100 people have blue eyes and 100 have brown. Blue-eyed people. This was intentional. The purpose of this exercise was to put the kids in the same predicament as the colored and the people that is not colored. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. This exercise teaches those students to not judge someone by his/her eye color. What type of genetic testing do you think should be allowed? The law states that we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site. The anti-racism sessions Elliott led were intense. The minimal group paradigm has shaped an entire methodology in social psychology. What are the potential ethical concerns associated with Milgram's experiment on obedience? How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination? Mad Mod's cane. Cookies are small text files that can be used by websites to make a user's experience more efficient. She says its because racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ethnocentrism are mean and nasty. Elliott, who is white, separated the students into two groupsthose with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. What factors do you think would influence whether individuals could use this technique? We use them to divide and destroy people., White peoples number one freedom, in the United States of America, is the freedom to be totally ignorant of those who are other than white. The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. All rights reserved. Why is cheating in an exam or essay wrong for Kant. To get it started, she asked the children about which people they would perceive as lower class. Here are the possibilities: Blue eyes + blue eyes = 100% chance of blue eyes. Ethical standards are violated when a person is psychologically, emotionally, or physically harmed from a research project that did not determine imminent risks in the study. (Optional) Attach an image to your letter. Why the Stanford Prison Experiment is invalid? This meeting, along with other clips of the exercises impact on education, is featured in a PBS documentary called A Class Divided. Voir les partenaires de TheConversation France. What were the ethical concerns involved in Milgram's experiment? CLAS Undergraduate Programs Dean's Office: A) Explain why or why not. 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. Charity is humiliating because its exercised vertically and from above; solidarity is horizontal and implies mutual respect.. How can we teach kids to be more like him? The brown-eyed children could take off their armbands and give them to the blue-eyed children, who were now taught that they were inferior to the brown-eyed children. Brown eyed students were allowed to drink from the water fountain, while blue eyed students had to use a cup to get water. . Answer (1 of 3): My guess is that is doesn't really represent racism but classism. For the first day, the "brown eyed" children are not able to go to recess, or lunch at the same time as the rest of the children. She started to make negative statements about one group, and the children easily accepted these new values associated with each group. This is the video of a study of social psychology by Mrs. Jane Elliot made in 1971. Since, none of the students was colored she used their eye color to demonstrate. Why was the Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment considered unethical in psychology? How can put those little children through that exercise for a day? And they seem unable to relate the sympathy that theyre feeling for these little white children for a day to what happens to children of color in this society for a lifetime or to the fact that they are doing this to children based on skin color every day. Why Did Jane Elliott Choose Eye Color To Divide Her Students? She traveled to conferences and corporate workshops. They went by names such as team-building, large group awareness training (LGAT), consciousness raising, management by objective, and transformative leadership training. Then it was switched the next day. The experience of being experimented upon, along with the fame (and money) her experiment earned for her, left hard feelings. Shy brown eyed students became more confident and talkative, and outgoing blue eyed students became quieter. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. In this experiment, she took a classroom of kids and separated them into two groups, one of brown-eyed children and green-eyed children, and one of blue-eyed children. She was a standing-room-only speaker at hundreds of colleges and universities. This technique allows researchers to show how many different traits are necessary to create defined groups, and then analyze the subjects behavior within their groups. Describe the Milgram Experiment, its results, and how it may have been unethical. Sadly, these conversations are still relevant today. In 1971, when Elliott was pitting blue-eyed students against their brown-eyed counterparts, Zimbardo was conducting his own contentious research, known as the Stanford Prison Experiment, to show how easy it was to make thugs out of college students once they were given an overdose of power. The mainstream media were complicit in advancing such a simplistic narrative. . Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. 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. Throughout the day, Elliott continued to give the children with blue eyes special treatment. That says very plainly that you know whats happening, you know you dont want it for you. I just discovered that PBS provides the entire documentary "A Class Divided" online. What can be changed to make the blue eyes and brown eyes experiment ethical according to the APA code of conduct? In her Brown Eyes vs. Blue Eyes experiment, Elliot put her students through an exercise which forced them to open their eyes to the pains of the victims of discrimination and to be more sympathetic and aware of their plights. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. ISBN 9780520382268. In this they saw how colors and discrimination . What factors do you think would influence whether individuals could use this technique? Help, Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes: A Cautionary Tale of Race and Brutality, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Distinguished Teaching in Journalism Award. Elliott split her students into two groups, based on eye color. What Was the Purpose of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? After the local newspaper published a story on Elliott and the experiment, she was flown to New York to appear on May 31, 1968, on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where she extolled the experiments effectiveness in cluing in her 8-year-old white students on what it was like to be Black in America. 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