blue eyes brown eyes experiment ethical issues

That's not true. Brown-eyed people, she told the students, are smarter, more civilized and better than blue-eyed people. 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. In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. In her article, Peggy McIntosh compares the "white privilege" to an invisible set of unearned rewards and . The textbook publisher McGraw-Hill has listed her on a timeline of key educators, along with Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Horace Mann, Booker T. Washington, Maria Montessori and 23 others. Elliotts coworkers avoided her after her appearance on The Tonight Show. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. ", When I met Elliott in 2003, she hadn't been back to Riceville in 12 years. The students started to internalize, and accept, the characteristics they'd been arbitrarily assigned based on the color of their eyes. The act of treating students differently was obviously a metaphor for the social decisions made on a larger level. School ought to be about developing character, but most teachers won't touch that with a ten-foot pole.". You should be happy! She described to her colleagues what she'd done, remarking how several of her slower kids with brown eyes had transformed themselves into confident leaders of the class. She told her students that she had made a mistake the previous day and that brown-eyed students . They gossiped about her in the hallway. There is a way to avoid editing or writing from scratch! The Blue Eye/Brown Eye was an experiment performed by Jane Elliot in 1968 on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. But Elliotts experiment had a more sinister impact. She chatted about the experiment, and before she knew it was whisked off the stage. To this day, at the age of 86, Jane Elliott continues this work. Their response is to create dichotomies of inferiority and superiority. 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. Written and verified by the psychologist Francisco Roballo. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. Would you? The minimal group paradigm has shaped an entire methodology in social psychology. "How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children," one said. It occurs to me that for a teacher, the arrival of new students at the start of each school year has a lot in common with the return of crops each summer. A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third-graders about racism. In 1970, she demonstrated it for educators at a White House Conference on Children and Youth. I was stunned. We dont have to learn about those who are other than white. In the early morning, dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying stalks that surround Riceville the way water surrounds an island. One group consisted pupils with brown eye while the other group consisted of those with blue eyes. Order from one of our vetted writers instead. I felt like hitting them if I wanted to. 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. I think it can. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. Danko, M. (2013). Why are we still talking about this experiment over 50 years later? She told the kids that blue-eyed children weren't as good as brown-eyed or green-eyed ones. 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 . They needed not acknowledge their privilege or reflect on it. But when she discovered that I was asking pointed questions of scores of her former students, as well as others subjected to the experiment, she made an about-face and said she no longer would cooperate with me. "We want to see Room No. Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes experiment was a turning point in social psychology. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. 980 Words. Then tell them that . SpeedyPaper.com 2023 All rights reserved. "You can see the look on their faces. Scores of others did participate. Through this study, Elliot demonstrated how easy it is for prejudice and discrimination to emerge from just a simple message that people with one eye color are superior to people with another eye color. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue-eyed kids to wear one. There were more brown-eyed students in the room. Regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, decision making in psychology should protect individual rights and welfare to eliminate potential biases. They felt superior and had the support of the authority figure (the teacher). Terms of Use She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. ", Jane shielded her eyes from the morning sun. 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 . Practical Psychology began as a collection of study material for psychology students in 2016, created by a student in the field. 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. When you read about this experiment, its hard not to question labels. The demonstration has since been taught by generations of teachers to millions of kids across the country. Jane Elliott's brown eye/blue eye experiment starts at 03:10 of A Class Divided. In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. She then made the blue-eyed students believe that they were better and smarter than their counterparts. I'm tired of hearing about her and her experiment and how everyone here is a racist. Elliott asked her students to write about their experiences for the local newspaper. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. Two years later, a BBC documentary captured the experiment in Elliott's classroom. 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.". Jane Elliot's 'The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment' was unethical in that she created a segregated environment in a third grade classroom. Mental Sandboxes and Their Usefulness in Today's World, The Law of Reversed Effort: When Taking Action Isn't the Best Option. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . See Page 1. At first, she cooperated with me. 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 . 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 Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? The secretary said the south side of the building was closed, something about waxing the hallways. [White people] on the other hand, don't have to understand them. In present society, psychological experiments are guided by honesty, truthfulness, and accuracy. Elliott rattled off the rules for the day, saying blue-eyed kids had to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. She also assumed that none of the children had interacted with black people and that the only place they could have seen them is on television. (In later versions of the exercise, children in the inferior group were given collars to wear.). At lunchtime, Elliott hurried to the teachers' lounge. She attended a oneroom rural schoolhouse.Today, at 72, Elliott, who has short white hair, a penetrating gaze and no-nonsense demeanor, shows no signs of slowing. "You know, sweetheart, you haven't changed one bit. The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. The contents of Exploring Your Mind are for informational and educational purposes only. They are more civilized than blue-eyed people. 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 . However, both Mary and Zeke have brown eyes. 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. Having in mind that it would be difficult to explain to third graders about discrimination, she needed to be more practical so that her student could understand how discrimination and prejudice felt. Now 45, she had been in Elliott's third grade class in 1969. As a result of those divisions, you see racial discrimination or even terrorism. ", 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. In Zimbardo's experiment the conditions were much more controlled for later study but the r. She was hesitant to enroll in Elliotts workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, shed have to attend. The people of riceville did not exactly welcome Elliott home from New York with a hayride. Elliott asked. This was intentional. . Children often fight, argue, and sometimes hit each other, but this time they were motivated by eye color.