PPT The Ethics of Using Human Participants - University of New Mexico On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. Students in the inferior groups were more likely to get a worse score. [online] Today I Found Out. 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. 1. At her lunch break that day in the teacher's lounge, she told her colleagues about the exercise. You must get the parents first. When Sarah, the Elliotts' oldest daughter, went to the girls' bathroom in junior high, she came out of a stall to see a message scrawled in red lipstick on the mirror: "Nigger lover.". Blue-eyed students slumped in their chairs, as though . Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue-eyed kids to wear one. "Because we might catch something," a brown-eyed boy said. . "It's the same thing over and over again," Cross says. Ethical Issues With Jane Elliott's Experiment But Elliotts experiment had a more sinister impact. Solve your problem differently! The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment - Studocu Is it even possible today? In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. 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. 296. Stephen Bloom on Jane Elliott's Famous Experiment on Race and Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? The first thing that Jane Elliott did was divide the children into groups: those with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. Throughout the day, Elliott continued to give the children with blue eyes special treatment. ", A former teacher, Ruth Setka, 79, said she was perhaps the only teacher who would still talk to Elliott. ", 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. Before proceeding with the test, she began with random questions to fully understand the children's perception of Negroes. Issues such as the right to know, the right to privacy, and informed consent. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. Jane Elliott on The Tonight Show on May 31, 1968. If brown-eyed children made a mistake, Elliott would call out the mistake and attribute it to the students brown eyes. Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER! In 1970, Elliott would come to national attention when ABC broadcast their Eye of the Storm documentary which filmed the experiment in action. ", Elliott defends her work as a mother defends her child. Three sections were selected to be administered the simulation . Then tell them that . I interviewed Julie Pasicznyk, who had been working for US West, a giant telecommunications company in Minneapolis. The students started to internalize, and accept, the characteristics they'd been arbitrarily assigned based on the color of their eyes. Yes, that day was tough. "That you, Ms. "I understand this is the first time you've flown?" She compromised the APA's Code of Conduct and Ethical Standard because she lied, after that she recanted the lies and kept as they were justified because of her greater purpose. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. Jane Elliot, a third-grade teacher from Lowa town, became troubled with the turn of events and knew that something had to be done about racial discrimination (Danko, 2013). A Review of Jane Elliott's Experiment In, a Class Divided She believed that experience was the only way her students could understand how it felt like to be discriminated. The subjects were 164 students enrolled in eight sections of an introductory elementary education course at a state university. Grey eyes are also a rare eye color. 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 . As for the criticism that the exercise encourages children to distrust authority figuresthe teacher lies, then recants the lies and maintains they were justified because of a greater goodshe says she worked hard to rebuild her students' trust. On the first day, she told the children with blue eyes they were superior: smarter and more well-behaved than the children with brown eyes. The corn grows so fast in northern Iowafrom seedling to seven-foot-high stalk in 12 weeksthat it crackles. Brown-eyed people, she told the students, are smarter, more civilized and better than blue-eyed people. Thousands of educators across the United States folded the experiment into their curriculums. Lasting Impact of Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment, Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. Classroom experiment. And the exercise continued in a similar fashion to how it was executed the day before. On Monday, Elliott reversed the exercise, and the brown-eyed kids were told how shifty, dumb and lazy theywere. Let's just move on. She has made statements about the increase in hate crimes and racism in recent years. They felt superior and had the support of the authority figure (the teacher). 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. A columnist at a Denver newspaper called it "evil. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. 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. The Daring Racism Experiment That People Still Talk About 20 - HuffPost Alan Charles Kors, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, says Elliott's diversity training is "Orwellian" and singled her out as "the Torquemada of thought reform." Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. Elliott championed the experiment as an inoculation against racism., [The Conversations Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. 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. "Not one of them reprimanded her for that or even corrected her. She split the class in two categories, according to eye color, and told the children that one group was superior to the others. According to role theorist Erving Goffman, emotional and cognitive experiences in such experiments as the Blue-Eyed versus the Brown-Eyed can have a long-term influence on behaviors and attitudes of participants especially when they are made to play the role of a stigmatized group (Biddle, 2013). At this point you may wish to tell the pupils that you are conducting an "experiment" to look at what prejudice is. See Page 1. To back up my statement Bloom (2005) says Jane Elliott's blue-eyes brown-eyes exercise encouraged children to mistrust authority figures. I have brown eyes. Considering all the stereotypes and prejudices that exist, what kind of damage is being done? Group Prejudice | Jane Elliott's Brown Eyes vs. Blue Eyes Experiment Jane Elliot: Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes - UKEssays.com Her bold experiment to teach Iowa third graders about racial prejudice divided townspeople and thrust her onto the national stage. The secretary on duty looked up, startled, as if she had just seen a ghost. (She prefers the term "exercise.") Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. The Blue-Eyed/Brown-Eyed Experiment: Investigation. 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 exercise continues to be relevant. SYNOPSIS OF BLUE EYED. When the exercise ended, some of the kids hugged, some cried. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. These differences lead to war and hate. She asked the other teachers what they were doing to bring news of the King assassination into their classrooms. According to the article is Jane Elliot's experiment to small degree effective. "Things are changing, and they're going to change rapidly if we're very, very fortunate," she said. If this arbitrary division that Elliott enforced for a few hours created so many problems in this classroom, whats happening on a larger scale? These are the sources and citations used to research Jane Elliott's blue eye brown eye case study is/isn't more ethical than Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. Theyd have to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. She chatted about the experiment, and before she knew it was whisked off the stage. She has since refused to answer any of my inquiries. In 1970, she demonstrated it for educators at a White House Conference on Children and Youth. The tallest structure in Riceville is the water tower. The study also violates the American Principles of Psychologist codes of conduct making its replication or further investigation unethical. On the first day of the experiment, Elliott told the children who had blue eyes that they were superior to the children with brown eyes; that they were better, nicer and smarter. 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. "How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children," one said. They don't replace the diagnosis, advice, or treatment of a professional. Elliott continues, "Just when you think that the fertile soil can sprout no more, another season comes round, and you see another year of bountiful crops, tall and straight. Pasicznyk joined 75 other employees for a training session in the companys suburban Denver headquarters in the late 1980s. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle . In fact, most of the initial response was negative. The children were not aware of the experiment, and therefore they could not give their permission of involvement. Introduction. Order from one of our vetted writers instead, First name should have at least 2 letters, Phone number should have at least 10 digits, Free Essay with a Response to Cross Words by UIW President Louis Agnese, How Does Donald Duk View His Chinese Heritage? Is your time best spent reading someone elses essay? Why do researchers use correlational studies? Elliott split her students into two groups, based on eye color. "It's happening every day in this country, right now," she said in an interview with Morning Edition. You've still got that same sweet smile. There were more brown-eyed students in the room. The fourth of five children, Elliott was born on her family's farm in Riceville in 1933, and was delivered by her Irish-American father himself. 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. Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment - SpeedyPaper The selection was based on the color of the eye for each group. A difference as simple as eye color, defined and established by the authority figure, created a rift between the students. "You have to put the exercise in the context of the rest of the year. January 1, 2003. Two Important Psychological Experiments: The Blue Eye/Brown Eye and Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes experiment was a turning point in social psychology. Blue Eyed vs Brown Eyed Study Conducted by Jane Elliott Presentation by Bree Elliott Ethics Background The Results In 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated, Jane Elliott was the teacher of a third grade class in the town of Riceville, Iowa. 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. PracticalPie.com is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. I felt mad. I'm tired of hearing about her and her experiment and how everyone here is a racist. She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism. Did they know what it was like to be discriminated against? As a journalism professor and author of a book on race that spans more than 50 years, Ive watched these developments with great concern. "She taught in this school for 18 years." You should be happy! Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. Keep me from judging a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins. This is a Sioux saying. In 1970, a documentary about the exercise was released. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. One of the ways Hitler decided who went into the gas chamber was eye color, Elliott said in a later speech. "She could get kids to do anything she wanted them to," he says of Elliott. Module 2 Discussion_ Are We Still Divided_ Blue Eyes_Brown Eyes_ A 3rd In Jane Elliott's experiment she made the third graders believe that the blue eyed people were better,than the brown eyed people. Exercise or Experiment-- An Account of Jane Elliott's Tenacity: A Not a day goes by without me thinking about it, Ms. Elliott. She has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" five times. As the morning wore on, brown-eyed kids berated their blue-eyed classmates. All rights reserved. ", A chorus of "Yeahs" went up, and so began one of the most astonishing exercises ever conducted in an American classroom. The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. 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. Basically, you establish differences between a set of subjects in order to divide them into separate groups. Elliot said that when the children were given the test on the same day that they were in the superior group, they tended to get the highest scores. 4. They needed not acknowledge their privilege or reflect on it. "They shot that King yesterday. Once indoors, the brown-eyed group was then treated to coffee and doughnuts, while the blue-eyed group could only stand around and wait. 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. She has led training sessions at General Electric, Exxon, AT&T, IBM and other corporations, and has lectured to the IRS, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Education and the Postal Service. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue . "I know who she is. How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination? The test also included violation of consent in which participation of the children was made involuntarily. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? Focusing on ethics the experiment violated some of the principles and codes of conduct established by the American Psychological Association. Back in the classroom, Elliott's experiment had taken on a life of its own. When Differences Matter | Facing History and Ourselves The children said yes, and the exercise began. Open Document. 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." Terms of Use The "invisible knapsack" is an analogy for a set of invisible and not widely talked about privileges that white people possess in the society. She then made the blue-eyed students believe that they were better and smarter than their counterparts. 10 Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today - Mental Floss The interaction only strengthened Elliott's resolve. We dont have to learn about those who are other than white. ", Others have praised Elliott's exercise. Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. "Hey, Mrs. Elliott," Steven yelled as he slung his books on his desk. 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. She then told them that the children with blue eyes were inherently inferior to the children with brown . With a couple of basic and arbitrary examples, Elliott made the case that brown-eyed people were better. She was a local girl and the other teachers were intimidated by her success. That got the other teachers angry. "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? The more melanin, the darker the person's eyesand the smarter the person. 980 Words. That might have been the end of it, but a month later, Elliott says, Johnny Carson called her. It was typical of Elliott's blunt styleno "Good morning," no small talk. Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. I was stunned. On the other hand, privileged members of the community are treated as in-groups which earn them undue respect and capacity to abuse the less advantaged. Why Did Jane Elliott Choose Eye Color To Divide Her Students? A Class Divided - Wikipedia Not everyone appreciated Elliotts exercise. A Class Divided: An Experiment Involving Race and Prejudice "The racists carry on, so I carry on." The lives and legacies of Dr. Jane Elliott and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are inextricably linked. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves, students with blue eyes and those with brown. 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. He printed them under the headline "How Discrimination Feels." "Your son got what he deserved," the woman said. 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. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. Given the long-term results of the experiment, the controversial study could not have taken place in today's society despite its significant insights on matters racism. Brown eyes and blue eyes Racism experiment Children Session - Jane Below, . She has . "We just want to peek in," I volunteered. ERIC - ED300491 - Ethical and Pedagogical Issues in the Use of On the first day, the blue-eyed students were informed that they were genetically inferior to the brown-eyed students. This paradigm helps understand the current problems related to discrimination. Elliott's friends and family say she's tenacious, and has always had a reformer's zeal. Grasping for a scientific explanation, she ended up claiming that melanin makes eyes darker, and makes . To Kill A Mockingbird Quotes - 1072 Words | Internet Public Library Website. Written and verified by the psychologist Francisco Roballo. Ms. Elliott, now 87, said she started teaching about racism on April 5, 1968 the day after the Rev. Many educators responded by holding mandatory workshops on institutional racism and implicit bias, reforming teaching methods and lesson plans and searching for ways to amplify undersung voices. Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes Experiment. What can be changed to make the blue eyes and brown eyes experiment The publication of compositions which the children had written about the experience in the local . Jane Elliott, shown here in 2009, remains an outspoken advocate against racism. Even though some of the children said yes, Elliott pushed back. PracticalPsychology. The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment. One key assumption is that the sample population represents an actual society. She says that its shocking how children whore normally kind, cooperative, and friendly with each other suddenly become arrogant, discriminatory, and hostile when they belong to a superior group. Before she could answer, another boy piped up: "If she didn't have blue eyes, she'd be the principal or the superintendent.". 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. he asked. Danko, M. (2013). Order from one of our vetted writers instead. In this scenario, students are told brown-eyed people . ", 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. There are risks to those inoculations, too, but we determine that those risks are worth taking. Elliott? "Malinda? When Elliott conducted the exercise the next year, she added something extra to collect data. It is sometimes cited as a landmark of social science. "This here is Jane Elliott," I said. Problems with this research were that it went against a lot of ethical issues. ", 2023 Smithsonian Magazine ABC broadcast a documentary about her work. They were forced to sit on the back rows and had to use a . "They can't forget me," she said, "and because of who they are, they can't forgive me. Even family members can turn against each other if some authority suddenly decides that those differences are a problem. She says its because racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ethnocentrism are mean and nasty. The act of treating students differently was obviously a metaphor for the social decisions made on a larger level. They also harassed them constantly. . 10," Elliott said. The results showed a . For many, the experiment went horribly awry. More than 50 years after she first tried that exercise in her classroom, Elliott, now 87, said she sees much more work left to do to change racist attitudes. Elliott began the exercise by dividing her students by eye color. In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. A Class Divided | FRONTLINE - PBS March 26, 1985. However, in this classroom, having blue-eyes had become a condition of inferiority. She and her husband, Darald Elliott, then a grocer, have four children, and they, too, felt a backlash. Your Privacy Rights This was intentional. The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliotts initial question to her students. Essay Example, Essay Example on Racism Towards Black People, Essay Sample about Developing a Campaign for School Intimidation, Essay Example on Therapist-Client Relationship Boundaries, Islamic Perspective on Euthanasia, Free Essay Sample. As a result of those divisions, you see racial discrimination or even terrorism. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show five times. Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., she pioneered an experiment to show her all-white class of third graders what it was like to be Black in America. "Mention two wordsJane Elliottand you get a flood of emotions from people," says Jim Cross, the Riceville Recorder's editor these days. Many of them noted that when they hear prejudice and discrimination from others, they wish they could whip out those collars and give them the experience they had as third graders. The same experiment was also used a couple of years later with adults. Need an original essay on Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment? 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. You can contribute to that positive change by watching the documentary. 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 . Consequently, the brown-eyed children started using blue-eyes as an insult. Would you like to find out? I felt like hitting them if I wanted to. Multi-Problem Adolescents: An Increasing Problem, Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment, the current problems related to discrimination. This meeting, along with other clips of the exercises impact on education, is featured in a PBS documentary called A Class Divided. Therefore when she gave the blue eyed people more freedom than the brown eyed people, the blue eyed people started feeling like kings because they thought they were better, and were treated better. 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 Elliott's brown eye/blue eye experiment starts at 03:10 of A Class Divided. "We want to see Room No. Melanin, she said, is what causes intelligence. Elliott was not. 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.