blue eyes brown eyes experiment ethical issues

At lunchtime, Elliott hurried to the teachers' lounge. 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. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . The fact that children are easy to manipulate into acting in a particular manner explains Jane's choice of sample. 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 asked the children, who were white. On the first day, the blue-eyed students were informed that they were genetically inferior to the brown-eyed students. The "invisible knapsack" is an analogy for a set of invisible and not widely talked about privileges that white people possess in the society. Open Document. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. She and her husband, Darald Elliott, then a grocer, have four children, and they, too, felt a backlash. And our number two freedom is the freedom to deny that were ignorant., I want every white person in this room who would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our citizens, our black citizens, if you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do in this society, please stand. 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. Why are we still talking about this experiment over 50 years later? Your Privacy Rights Ethical issues were 1/3 of the participants refused to take the head off the rat . "They are cleaner and they are smarter.". 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. 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. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? The minimal group paradigm has shaped an entire methodology in social psychology. Elliot wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). While Jane Elliot's experiment makes several assumptions, it also has some ethical concerns. one girl asked. Her bold experiment to teach Iowa third graders about racial prejudice divided townspeople and thrust her onto the national stage. 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 . The second day, Elliott reversed the groups. Biddle, B. J. Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. That might have been the end of it, but a month later, Elliott says, Johnny Carson called her. "We just want to peek in," I volunteered. The blue eyes and brown eyes experiment According to supporters of Elliott's approach, the goal is to reach people's sense of empathy and morality. The nearest traffic light is 20 miles away. Sorry, but it's not possible to copy the text due to security reasons. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. And the exercise continued in a similar fashion to how it was executed the day before. Pasicznyk joined 75 other employees for a training session in the companys suburban Denver headquarters in the late 1980s. At recess, three brown-eyed girls ganged up on her. In the 60s, the United States was in the midst of a social race crisis. In a grassy front yard down the block is a hand-lettered sign: "Glads for Sale, 3 for $1." Elliott started to see her own white privilege, even her own ignorance. Jane Elliott on The Tonight Show on May 31, 1968. Most Riceville residents seem to have an opinion of Elliott, whether or not they've met her. Yet what Elliott did continues to stir controversy. All the work should be used in accordance with the appropriate policies and applicable laws. Is your time best spent reading someone elses essay? She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Would you like to find out? 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. [White people] on the other hand, don't have to understand them. 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. Before proceeding with the test, she began with random questions to fully understand the children's perception of Negroes. They also harassed them constantly. a brown-eyed boy asked. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]. Thousands of educators across the United States folded the experiment into their curriculums. Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. 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. See Page 1. Answer (1 of 3): My guess is that is doesn't really represent racism but classism. Elliott split her students into two groups, based on eye color. There is a way to avoid editing or writing from scratch! 5/21/2020 Topic: Module 2 Discussion: Elliott asked her students to write about their experiences for the local newspaper. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. Privacy Statement The study also violates the American Principles of Psychologist codes of conduct making its replication or further investigation unethical. "I don't think this community was ready for what she did," he said. The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliotts initial question to her students. The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. The publication of compositions which the children had written about the experience in the local . The blue-eyed students, when told they were superior and offered privileges such as extra recess time, changed their behavior dramatically and their attitudes toward the children with brown eyes. Locals say that drivers don't signal when they turn because everyone knows where everyone else is going. Elliott was shocked by the results and decided to switch the roles the following day. 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. 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. 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. Elliott is nothing if not stubborn. 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 On Monday, Elliott reversed the exercise, and the brown-eyed kids were told how shifty, dumb and lazy theywere. Traditionally, society has always treated leadership as a male issue. 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 . March 26, 1985. Weve been here before, with unsettling and disturbing results. Jane Elliott's experiment of dividing an otherwise homogenous group of school kids by their eye color. In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. These differences lead to war and hate. Looking back, I think part of the problem was that, like the residents of other small midwestern towns I've covered, many in Riceville felt that calling attention to oneself was poor manners, and that Elliott had shone a bright light not just on herself but on Riceville; people all over the United States would think Riceville was full of bigots. Is it even possible today? Elliot's approach to the experiment involved creativity in which the pupils' age and ability to comprehend discrimination was taken into account. Elliott was not. 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. "On an airplane, it is," Elliott said to appreciative laughter from the studio audience. We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. "We are repeating the blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise on a daily basis.". 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. She was hesitant to enroll in Elliotts workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, shed have to attend. In 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated the United States was in turmoil. As a journalism professor and author of a book on race that spans more than 50 years, Ive watched these developments with great concern. "This here is Jane Elliott," I said. That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. ", 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. Jane Elliott, Creator of the "Blue/Brown Eyes" Experiment, Says Racism Is Easy To Fix. 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. [online] Today I Found Out. You must get the parents first. She then made the blue-eyed students believe that they were better and smarter than their counterparts. This time, the participants werent a bunch of elementary school children they were young adults. Elliott asked. They were forced to sit on the back rows and had to use a . It was typical of Elliott's blunt styleno "Good morning," no small talk. How can we teach kids to be more like him? 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. She said she watched and was horrified at what she saw. The Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment. "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" It is a must . The three outcomes are: (1) virtually all of the subjects reported that the experience was Throughout the investigation, the classroom represented a real-life scenario in which the unprivileged and minority members of the society are treated as out-groups making them susceptible to discrimination. 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. They are cleaner than blue-eyed people. Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. 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 . The anti-racism sessions Elliott led were intense. 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. 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. Danko, M. (2013). Though Jane's actions were justifiable because she was not a psychologist, her experiment cannot be replicated in the present society. Children often fight, argue, and sometimes hit each other, but this time they were motivated by eye color. 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. Keep me from judging a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins. This is a Sioux saying. Not a day goes by without me thinking about it, Ms. Elliott. She told her students that she had made a mistake the previous day and that brown-eyed students . Within a few hours of starting the exercise, Elliott noticed big differences in the childrens behavior and how they treated each other. Need an original essay on Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment? ", A former teacher, Ruth Setka, 79, said she was perhaps the only teacher who would still talk to Elliott. 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. They were also relevant in the 1950s when Elliott first began this work. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? 10," Elliott said. Additionally, the brown-eyed students got to sit in the front of the class, while the blue-eyed kids . The test also included violation of consent in which participation of the children was made involuntarily. "He's a bluey! ", We stopped on Woodlawn Avenue, and a woman in her mid-40s approached us on the sidewalk. Did they know what it was like to be discriminated against? The episode features with new footage of the students, who are now adults. Thats what it feels like when youre discriminated against., -A child participant in the Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes experiment-. The contents of Exploring Your Mind are for informational and educational purposes only. In 1970, Elliott would come to national attention when ABC broadcast their Eye of the Storm documentary which filmed the experiment in action. "That you, Ms. ", Steve Harnack, 62, served as the elementary school principal beginning in 1977. . Blue-eyed people. 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.". You have the right color eyes!. The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. She was 10 before the farmhouse had running water and electricity. ", We backed out. (She prefers the term "exercise.") Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. However, in this classroom, having blue-eyes had become a condition of inferiority. Thats how it started, and thats how it went all day long. And you'll always have it. "She could get kids to do anything she wanted them to," he says of Elliott. The brown-eyed students also exercised a certain level of power over the blue-eyed students when they put the armbands on them. 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). . The act of treating students differently was obviously a metaphor for the social decisions made on a larger level. One scholar asserts that it is "Orwellian" and teaches whites "self-contempt." Then tell them that . 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. "There's a sense of renewal here that I've never seen anywhere else," Elliott says. For many, the experiment went horribly awry. Introduction. Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I'm tired of hearing about her and her experiment and how everyone here is a racist. On the first day of the experiment, she declared the brown-eyed group superior and gave them extra privileges like seconds at lunch, extra recess time, and access to the new school playground. A difference as simple as eye color, defined and established by the authority figure, created a rift between the students. 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 early morning, dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying stalks that surround Riceville the way water surrounds an island. One student answers, since the day I was born. Throughout the entire experiment, Elliott leads frank conversations about race and discrimination. Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment. SYNOPSIS OF BLUE EYED. ", Elliott defends her work as a mother defends her child. The kids in the bottom group became timider and kept to themselves. Want a quality guarantee? Still, Elliott said the last few years have brought out America's worst racist tendencies.

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