blue eyes brown eyes experiment ethical issues

(Byrnes & Kiger, 1992). Would you like to get this essay by email? She has made statements about the increase in hate crimes and racism in recent years. In this article, we'll explain what happened during the experiment and discuss its consequences. The students who had blue eyes were told that they were better and smarter than their inferior brown-eyed peers. The fact that children are easy to manipulate into acting in a particular manner explains Jane's choice of sample. Barbie had to have a Ken, so Elliott picked from the audience a tall, handsome man and accused him of doing the same things with his female subordinates, Pasicznyk said. Elliott had hoped that this experiment would help the children to better understand the feelings of discrimination that certain groups feel on a daily basis, but what she didn . 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. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. Written and verified by the psychologist Francisco Roballo. How can we teach kids to be more like him? Some guidelines for avoiding or reducing this effect are: In conclusion, Jane Elliotts experiment demonstrates the fragility of coexistence and cooperation. The day after Kings murder, Jane Elliott, a white third-grade teacher in rural Riceville, Iowa, sought to make her students feel the brutality of racism. And StanfordUniversity psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo writes in his 1979 textbook, Psychology and Life, that Elliott's "remarkable" experiment tried to show "how easily prejudiced attitudes may be formed and how arbitrary and illogical they can be." Blue-eyed people. The blue eyes brown eyes study was a study on group prejudice and discrimination conducted by Jane Elliot. In 1970, a documentary about the exercise was released. "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? "I don't think this community was ready for what she did," he said. What Was the Purpose of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? "I think these children walked in a colored child's moccasins for a day," she was quoted as saying. ", Steve Harnack, 62, served as the elementary school principal beginning in 1977. Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. Thus, the dominant group, supported by the authorities, will always have the upper hand. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? The act of treating students differently was obviously a metaphor for the social decisions made on a larger level. In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. In the case of any doubt, it's best to consult a trusted specialist. They needed not acknowledge their privilege or reflect on it. From the University of California Press website: The never-before-told true story of Jane Elliott and the "Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment" she made world-famous, using eye color to simulate racism. Its not true and its not fair no matter what you say! he responded. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle the exercise and would be seriously damaged by the exercise. One key assumption is that the sample population represents an actual society. We have to let people find out how it feels to be on the receiving end of that which we dish out so readily.". You must get the parents first. 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 experiment to demonstrate . 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. All 28 children found their desks, and Elliott said she had something special for them to do, to begin to understand the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. the day before. They all either smiled or laughed and nodded.". To get her points across, Elliott hurled insults at workshop participants, particularly those who were white and had blue eyes. Elliott was even brought on The Tonight Show to talk about her experiences. 10," Elliott said. Undeterred, Elliott tried to appeal to Pauls self-interest. Two education professors in England, Ivor F. Goodson and Pat Sikes, suggest that Elliott's experiment was unethical because the participants weren't informed of its real purpose beforehand. Is your time best spent reading someone elses essay? Ethics + Religion; Health; Politics + Society; . 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.". 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. Thats how it started, and thats how it went all day long. 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. Little children don't like uproar in the classroom. All rights reserved. Even though some of the children said yes, Elliott pushed back. Elliott separated her all-white class of students into two groups: blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. Sorry, but it's not possible to copy the text due to security reasons. Jane Elliott's experiment of dividing an otherwise homogenous group of school kids by their eye color. "Things are changing, and they're going to change rapidly if we're very, very fortunate," she said. In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. Privacy Statement Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. "It changed my life. There were more brown-eyed students in the room. Much like the Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment where students were divided by either being the jailer or the jailed. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . To begin with, Jane Elliot's experiment involved deception in which the children were made in believing that change in eye color influence intelligence. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. She and Darald split their time between a converted schoolhouse in Osage, Iowa, a town 18 miles from Riceville, and a home near Riverside, California. They were also relevant in the 1950s when Elliott first began this work. She split the class in two categories, according to eye color, and told the children that one group was superior to the others. Order from one of our vetted writers instead. Nobodys standing here. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise received national attention shortly after it ended. In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. 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. Jane Elliott was a third grade teacher in Riceville, Iowa when she developed the Blue Eyed/ Brown Eyed exercise to teach the effects of racism. 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. When my grandchildren are old enough, I'd give anything if you'd try the exercise out on them. Jane Elliott at Riceville, Iowa, Elementary School in 1968. Their response is to create dichotomies of inferiority and superiority. 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. Once indoors, the brown-eyed group was then treated to coffee and doughnuts, while the blue-eyed group could only stand around and wait. She wanted to show her students that an arbitrarily established difference could separate them and pit them against each other. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Racism is not genetical. With this experiment she wanted to let the blue-eyed people (white people) feel how it is to be in low power position. She has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" five times. "Hey, Mrs. Elliott," Steven yelled as he slung his books on his desk. 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. Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. Professor of Journalism, University of Iowa. 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." Things even got violent at recess. Let's just move on. She would conduct the exercise for the nine more years she taught the third grade, and the next eight years she taught seventh and eighth graders before giving up teaching in Riceville, in 1985, largely to conduct the eye-color exercise for groups outside the school. Brown-eyed people. That got the other teachers angry. Kellen Castineiras PSY Dr. Gail C. Flanagan February 6, 2022. . The hate and discrimination that we see in adults have their origin in their upbringing. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, Elliott had a talk with her students about diversity and racism. Issues such as the right to know, the right to privacy, and informed consent. Terms of Use Elliott was shocked by the results and decided to switch the roles the following day. "That's what I tried to teach, and that's what drove the other teachers crazy. Elliott shared the essays with her mother, who showed them to the editor of the weekly Riceville Recorder. The mainstream media were complicit in advancing such a simplistic narrative. "That you, Ms. In fact, most of the initial response was negative. Elliott championed the experiment as an inoculation against racism., [The Conversations Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. The experiment known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. However, in this classroom, having blue-eyes had become a condition of inferiority. "He's a bluey! He printed them under the headline "How Discrimination Feels." She slumped. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Decent Essays. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. I felt like hitting them if I wanted to. Jane Elliott, one of the most controversial figures in U.S. education and diversity training, began her journey to international acclaim in Riceville, Iowa. Before she could answer, another boy piped up: "If she didn't have blue eyes, she'd be the principal or the superintendent.". The latter felt discriminated against by the other brown-eyed children. One group consisted pupils with brown eye while the other group consisted of those with blue eyes. She wanted them to understand what discrimination felt like. We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. Elliott and I were sitting at her dining room table. The anti-racism sessions Elliott led were intense. "They shot that King yesterday. . "Because we might catch something," a brown-eyed boy said. Though Jane's actions were justifiable because she was not a psychologist, her experiment cannot be replicated in the present society. She told her students that she had made a mistake the previous day and that brown-eyed students . 5/21/2020 Topic: Module 2 Discussion: Why are we still talking about this experiment over 50 years later? 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. One of the most famous experiments in education Jane Elliott's "blue eyes, brown eyes" separation of her third grade students to teach them about prejudice was very different from what the public was told, as revealed in this excerpt from the in-depth story about what really happened in that classroom. After recess that day, the brown-eyed children complained that they were . They wouldnt be allowed second helpings for lunch. 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. She was 10 before the farmhouse had running water and electricity. Elliott went after Ken and Barbie all day long, drilling, accusing, ridiculing them, to make the point that whites make baseless judgments about Blacks all the time, Pasicznyk said. In Jane Elliott's experiment she made the third graders believe that the blue eyed people were better,than the brown eyed people. The test also included violation of consent in which participation of the children was made involuntarily. The study also violates the American Principles of Psychologist codes of conduct making its replication or further investigation unethical. The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. It brings up immediate anger and hatred. Locals say that drivers don't signal when they turn because everyone knows where everyone else is going. 4 Pages. With over 2 million YouTube subscribers, over 500 articles, and an annual reach of almost 12 million students, it has become one of the most popular sources of psychological information. 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. The brown-eyed people were told to step to the front of the line. She believed that experience was the only way her students could understand how it felt like to be discriminated. Kids on top would tease the children who were deemed as the inferior group. . Then tell them that . Select from the 0 categories from which you would like to receive articles. These initial criticisms didnt stop Elliott.

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