blue eyes brown eyes experiment ethical issues

"You know, sweetheart, you haven't changed one bit. There were more brown-eyed students in the room. The test violated the principle of respect for people's rights and dignity. 10 Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today. 5/21/2020 Topic: Module 2 Discussion: Her class, Much like the Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment where students were divided by either being the jailer or the jailed. Brown-eyed people, she told the students, are smarter, more civilized and better than blue-eyed people. Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes experiment was a turning point in social psychology. "I think third grade was too young for what she did. he asked. ", Others have praised Elliott's exercise. "Black children grow up accustomed to such behavior, but white children, there's no way they could possibly understand it. Jane Elliott's brown eye/blue eye experiment starts at 03:10 of A Class Divided. those with brown eyes (or hazel eyes). ", Then, the inevitable: "Hey, Mrs. Elliott, how come you're the teacher if you've got blue eyes?" Hundreds of viewers wrote letters saying Elliott's work appalled them. In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. The experiment known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. They gossiped about her in the hallway. "Things are changing, and they're going to change rapidly if we're very, very fortunate," she said. Jane Elliott's experiment. Elliott created the blue-eyes/brown-eyes classroom exercise in 1968 to teach students about racism. (2022, Apr 06). ", Dean Weaver, 70, superintendent of Riceville schools from 1972 to 1979, said, "She'd just go ahead and do things. 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. The 1970s and 1980s were ripe for diversity education in the private and public sectors, and Elliott would try out the experiment at workshops on tens of thousands of participants, not just in the U.S. and Canada, but in Europe, the Middle East and Australia. What Lies Behind Your Urgent Need to Answer Work E Mails? Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The documentary has become a popular teaching tool among teachers, business owners, and even employees at correctional facilities. The children said yes, and the exercise began. We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. Elliott and I were sitting at her dining room table. Why was the Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment considered unethical in psychology? Jane Elliott, one of the most controversial figures in U.S. education and diversity training, began her journey to international acclaim in Riceville, Iowa. Elliott championed the experiment as an inoculation against racism., [The Conversations Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. But the protests happening now have given her hope. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. In 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated the United States was in turmoil. Is it even possible today? The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. Today, she says, it's still playing out as the U.S. reckons with racial injustice. It is sometimes cited as a landmark of social science. The blue-eyed girl apologized. This time, the participants werent a bunch of elementary school children they were young adults. Separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. (2013). Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment. In the documentary, she said that she conducted the original blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment to make a positive change. (Byrnes & Kiger, 1992). How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination? 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.". Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. See Page 1. Ms. Elliott, now 87, said she started teaching about racism on April 5, 1968 the day after the Rev. Charity is humiliating because its exercised vertically and from above; solidarity is horizontal and implies mutual respect.. She has . 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. The experiment, known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment, is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. The blue eyes brown eyes study was a study on group prejudice and discrimination conducted by Jane Elliot. Jane Elliott, an educator and anti-racism activist, first conducted her blue eyes/brown eyes exercise in her third-grade classroom in Iowa in 1968. 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. The Associated Press followed up, quoting Elliott as saying she was "dumbfounded" by the exercise's effectiveness. The goal of the minimal group paradigm is to establish subjective differences and create a climate of favoritism. In present society, psychological experiments are guided by honesty, truthfulness, and accuracy. You have the right color eyes!. Is your time best spent reading someone elses essay? March 26, 1985. In fact, most of the initial response was negative. The smell of the crops and loam and topsoil and manure wafted though the open door. On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . Jane Elliott is 84 years old, a tiny woman with white hair, wire-rim glasses and little patience. She pointed out flaws in a student and associated it with . The latter felt discriminated against by the other brown-eyed children. APA principles acknowledge that individuals rights to privacy, self-determination, and confidentiality is paramount to all psychological activities. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. You must get the parents first. "Brown-eyed people have more of that chemical in their eyes, so brown-eyed people are better than those with blue eyes," Elliott said. She asked them if they would like to experience what it felt like to be in a person of colors shoes. Little children don't like uproar in the classroom. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. They didnt need to engage with a single Black person. (2010). She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. The results were the same. It makes you proud. The first day of the experiment she convinced the children that blue-eyed people were smarter, better and would have more priorities. Students in the inferior groups were more likely to get a worse score. They felt superior and had the support of the authority figure (the teacher). Its not true and its not fair no matter what you say! he responded. Elliott asked her students to write about their experiences for the local newspaper. She knew that the children weren't going to buy her pitch unless she came up with a reason, and the more scientific to these Space Age children of the 1960s, the better. "They shot that King yesterday. In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. At this point you may wish to tell the pupils that you are conducting an "experiment" to look at what prejudice is. Advertising Notice She wanted them to understand what discrimination felt like. Some residents were furious. "Let me look at you," Elliott said. The students initially involved wished that everyone could participate in an exercise like this. Cookie Settings, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds, Rare Jurassic-Era Insect Discovered at Arkansas Walmart. ", We stopped on Woodlawn Avenue, and a woman in her mid-40s approached us on the sidewalk. "No person of any age [was] going to leave my presence with those attitudes unchallenged," Elliott said. 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 are cleaner and they are smarter.". The corn grows so fast in northern Iowafrom seedling to seven-foot-high stalk in 12 weeksthat it crackles. Elliotts bullying rejoinder to any nonbeliever was to say that however much pain a white person felt after one or two days of made-up discrimination was nothing when compared to what Blacks endure daily. "He's a bluey! 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. Considering all the stereotypes and prejudices that exist, what kind of damage is being done? Jane Elliott's Blue-Eyed versus Brown-Eyed Students experiment was conducted to determine whether racism was a learned characteristic. Lasting Impact of Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment, Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. "They can't forget me," she said, "and because of who they are, they can't forgive me. "Your son got what he deserved," the woman 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? Provide your email for sample delivery, You agree to receive our emails and consent to our Terms & Conditions, Order an essay on this subject and get a 100% original paper. Nobodys standing here. She was a local girl and the other teachers were intimidated by her success. Then a picture was taken to remember. When my grandchildren are old enough, I'd give anything if you'd try the exercise out on them. Proceeding with the experiment, Elliot divided the children into two groups each with nine pupils. She then made the blue-eyed students believe that they were better and smarter than their counterparts. One of the blue eyed even went to hit a brown eyed just for the fact that he was brown eyed. Multi-Problem Adolescents: An Increasing Problem, Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment, the current problems related to discrimination. Solve your problem differently! 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 Blue Eye/Brown Eye was an experiment performed by Jane Elliot in 1968 on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Elliott began the exercise by dividing her students by eye color. Her bold experiment to teach Iowa third graders about racial prejudice divided townspeople and thrust her onto the national stage. Even though some of the children said yes, Elliott pushed back. Written and verified by the psychologist Francisco Roballo. The effectiveness of a well-known prejudice-reduction simulation activity, "Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes," was assessed as a tool for changing the attitudes of nonblack teacher education students toward blacks. The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. The kids in the bottom group became timider and kept to themselves. He printed them under the headline "How Discrimination Feels." Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes Experiment. On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. 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. In the brown eyed/blue eyed experiment Jane Elliot told her third graders with blue eyes that they were better than the brown-eyed children. And you'll always have it. That might have been the end of it, but a month later, Elliott says, Johnny Carson called her. One example that has been in place for many years is the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. Pasicznyk joined 75 other employees for a training session in the companys suburban Denver headquarters in the late 1980s. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. View Module 2 Discussion_ Are We Still Divided_ Blue Eyes_Brown Eyes_ A 3rd Grade Lesson for Us All.pdf from HUMN 330 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. 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. "How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children," one said. One of the ways Hitler decided who went into the gas chamber was eye color, Elliott said in a later speech. Brown-eyed people. It is a must . 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. Hire a professional with VAST experience! These initial criticisms didnt stop Elliott. "She was an excellent school teacher, but she has a way about her," says 90-year-old Riceville native Patricia Bodenham, who has known Elliott since Jane was a baby. Outside, rows of corn stretched to the horizon. 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. 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. The episode features with new footage of the students, who are now adults. Its goal was to demonstrate what prejudice was to her third grade class. In her article, Peggy McIntosh compares the "white privilege" to an invisible set of unearned rewards and . She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. A columnist at a Denver newspaper called it "evil. Elliot's approach to the experiment involved creativity in which the pupils' age and ability to comprehend discrimination was taken into account. 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. The answer, in a word, was nothing. The story was then picked up by the Associated Press. In this documentary, Jane Elliott, a third grade teacher divided her class into two groups based on their eye color; one group had blue eyes and the other had brown eyes. Elliott was even brought on The Tonight Show to talk about her experiences. Directed by William Peters, the episode profiles the Iowa schoolteacher Jane Elliott and her class of third graders, who took part in a class exercise about discrimination and prejudice in 1970 and reunited in the present day to recall the experience. Initial Reaction to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Exercise. Unfortunately, you cant copy samples. 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 Although actions from the experiment show lack of respect towards subjects it has widely been recognized in the study of human behavior in social and cultural context. Blue-eyed students slumped in their chairs, as though . Additionally, the brown-eyed students got to sit in the front of the class, while the blue-eyed kids . 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. What Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle the exercise and would be seriously damaged by the exercise. 1. The first thing that Jane Elliott did was divide the children into groups: those with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. 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. She told the students that the brown-eyed children were inferior and repeated the experiment. Blue eyes, brown eyes: What Jane Elliott's famous experiment says about race 50 years on. 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. In this scenario, students are told brown-eyed people . A difference as simple as eye color, defined and established by the authority figure, created a rift between the students. 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." The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment. The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups and gave them a daring . Typical of their responses was that of Debbie Hughes, who reported that "the people in Mrs. Elliott's room who had brown eyes got to discriminate against the people who had blue eyes. Carson asked, grinning. 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. Professor of Journalism, University of Iowa. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise.". Kids on top would tease the children who were deemed as the inferior group. Normally, blue-eyes isnt an insult. ", Steve Harnack, 62, served as the elementary school principal beginning in 1977. "She taught in this school for 18 years." The American Psychologists Principles and code of conduct state that in cases of deception, experimenters should take into consideration the potential harmful effects to participants. "This here is Jane Elliott," I said. Everyone looked at Mrs. Elliott. All rights reserved. "I understand this is the first time you've flown?" Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. On the second day of the experiment, Elliott switched the childrens roles. 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). Most Riceville residents seem to have an opinion of Elliott, whether or not they've met her. "She got carried away by this possession she developed over human beings. Not everyone appreciated Elliotts exercise. The students started to internalize, and accept, the characteristics they'd been arbitrarily assigned based on the color of their eyes. The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. 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. Theyd have to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. Elliott split her students into two groups, based on eye color. 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. Retrieved from https://speedypaper.com/essays/ethical-concerns-in-jane-elliots-experiment, Free essays can be submitted by anyone, so we do not vouch for their quality. Elliott, who is white, separated the students into two groupsthose with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. Elliott was not. Traditionally, society has always treated leadership as a male issue. ", Walt Gabelmann, 83, was Riceville's mayor for 18 years beginning in 1966. Children with brown eyes were forced to wear armbands that made it easy for people to see that they had brown eyes. What Was the Purpose of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? The interaction only strengthened Elliott's resolve. It has everything to do with power.. Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? Their 12-year-old daughter, Mary, came home from school one day in tears, sobbing that her sixth-grade classmates had surrounded her in the school hallway and taunted her by saying her mother would soon be sleeping with black men. 10," Elliott said. 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. 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. Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Facilitators should be aware that Jane Elliott's focus on white people can lead viewers to the wrong impression that people of color are passively molded by white people's behavior when, in actuality, people of color can and do respond to racism in a variety of ways. Everyone's tired of her. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise received national attention shortly after it ended. She told the kids that blue-eyed children weren't as good as brown-eyed or green-eyed ones. And Im only doing this as an exercise that every child knows is an exercise and every child knows is going to end at the end of the day., We learn to be racist, therefore we can learn not to be racist. Before she could answer, another boy piped up: "If she didn't have blue eyes, she'd be the principal or the superintendent.". The experiment, known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment, is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. They all either smiled or laughed and nodded.". Exploring your mind Blog about psychology and philosophy. She split the class in two categories, according to eye color, and told the children that one group was superior to the others. Your Privacy Rights The Blue Eyes & Brown Eyes Exercise. Elliott flew to the NBC studio in New York City.

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