Eye Color Experiment

The study the article presents follows four students from 2001 to 2011 at four Chicago public schools. The students were between 14-17 years of age and two of the four schools were largely segregated. Specifically, one had no white or Asian students. The other two were diverse “by Chicago standards” with one school having a population of one-third white or Asian students and the other with a population with more than half. The results of the study can be seen as it follows two kids whose pseudonyms are Alex and TB. Alex, who has a racially mixed group of friends is contrasted to TB who does not. While shopping at the mall, Alex’s three black friends were pulled out

This children seemed well behaved they sat back and listen to their teacher feed them with with lies on eye color. At first the kids seemed like they were not going to fall for the trick but the teacher kept enforcing that she was right about brown eyed students

In a powerful experiment we were able to see through the eyes of a kindergarten children prejudice dynamics. In a famous experience by Jane Elliot she separated her class between blue-eyed and brown-eyed students. Professor Elliot had separated her students by making one eye group inferior to the other making them have certain benefits and better treatment than the other group of students. Eventually, the students were switched the following day. This experiment have showed this group of kindergarten students how colors and discrimination affected the minority population. After this successful experiment with the kindergarten student’s professor Jane Elliot had done many other experiments using adults using the a similar technique blue-eyed

A CLASS DIVIDED Thirty years ago Jane Elliott taught the third grade in the white, Christian community of Riceville, Iowa. The day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed she planned an exercise that wouldn't just show her students what racism is - rather, it would give them first-hand experience of what it felt like to be oppressed for something out of their control. Elliott divided her class by the color of their eyes, marked them with armbands and proceeded to treat one group as if superior in capabilities to the other. The superior students performed better than they ever had before, while the inferior students' performance dropped. The next day, the third graders traded ranks and their performance reversed in accordance to their

Racial discrimination has a great impact on people of various races. Throughout the past generations, many people have faced discrimination because of the way that they look. People have been hated, beaten, killed and made fun of. Many people have been put down because of the way that they look. Adults, teens and even children began thinking less of themselves after the incidents. Many African Americans started considering themselves inferior to whites, which lead them to perform worse in school and daily activities. Looking at the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the video experiment Brown Eyes and Blue Eyes performed by Jane Elliott, it is evident that African Americans faced discrimination for hundreds of years, which lead them to consider themselves inferior amongst all other people.

On April 5 1968 Jane Elliot preformed the historical experiment in her 3rd grade classroom separating blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. After the death of Martin Luther King her students raised quiestions and she wanted to think of a way to make her students understand what minorities in the U.S feel like. Jane believed that her students would understand what it felt like to be discriminated against by separating them by their eye color. She asked her students if they wanted to be treated like a person of color for a day, judging their peers by the color of their eyes. The students went along with it and that coined the experiment that would later be known as “A Class Divided”.

Racial formation is a vast sum of signifying actions and social structures that clash in the creation of complex relationships and identities that is a labeled race. Throughout the history of the United States, a large array of strategies was engaged in regarding education that took advantage of nonwhites. Since policies by those who supposedly “protect our rights” attempted to eradicate social, economic and cultural aspirations, dominated groups were more often than not suspicious of the school 's interests. According to John Ogby, “children from dominated cultures often failed school because they considered the school to be representative of the dominant white culture” (Spring, 101). This portrays racial formation having an effect on equality. “Acting white” meant to attempt to do well in school because

“A Class Divided”: When asked the question, “do you think you know how it feels to be judged by the color of your skin”, a few felt that they did. Initially the children were excited to participate in the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment, until they realized they would be the people being judged. Once the teacher announced that the blue-eyed people are the “better people” than the brown-eyed children, immediately voiced their disagreement. One blue-eyed boy stated, “My dad has brown eyes and he’s not stupid.”

This documentary was an exercise in response to the assassination of Dr King. Jane Elliot a third grade teacher from Iowa decided it was time to create a microcosm society after Martin Luther king Jr was killed. She performed this experiment in two separate places between kids in her all white Christian school and between adults at an Iowa State prison system on human relations. This came after they had made him a “heroes of the month for the month of February at the middle school which she teaches at. She tried to figure out a way to explain this scenario to her third grade student as to why Martin Luther King was assassinated. Jane Elliot decided to use the eye color experiment where she placed people with blue eye and brown eyes in separate groups and see how each group function when they’re discriminated against. The result of the experiment helped bring people closer as brothers and led people to understand how it felt to be discriminated against. Although Mrs. Elliot carried out this experiment with a different class of people, it would have been great to run this with

In Essence, Beegle’s article encompasses all concepts of human diversity and differential treatment as described in our textbook (Kirst-Ashman, 2016). Based on this Beegle’s study, children and youth raised in poverty suffered discrimination, they were treated differently because of their appearance, and economic

She pointed out flaws of the brown-eyed group and seemingly better traits of the blue-eyed group that made her statement seem correct leading to a generalized prejudice. Elliot then made rules for the groups, including that of recess time, drinking fountain privileges, lunch privileges, and segregation on the playground, giving advantages to the superior blue-eyed group and disadvantages to the inferior brown-eyed group which is a small-scale simulation of societal and governmental oppression of minorities. The kids laughed at the “other 's” misfortune, two kids of each group got into a fight, and hateful things were said by the “good” group while a look and feel of disappointment, shame, and exclusion was shown by the “bad” group. The roles were effectively reversed on the second day by using the same methods. The brown-eyed group were more than happy to give their collars to the blue-eyed group. The situated identities of the children were changed by Jane Elliot, an authority figure, by declaring that people of one eye color were better than people of another. She pointed out flaws and supposed shortcomings that made the one group seem inferior and the other group adopted this generalized view. This turned into discriminatory rules and acts in the class and on the playground.

1. The "invisible knapsack" is an analogy for a set of invisible and not widely talked about privileges that white people possess in the society. In her article, Peggy McIntosh compares the "white privilege" to an invisible set of unearned rewards and benefits that white people utilize in their lives unconsciously on a daily basis. The privileges that white people often take for granted include, amongst others, being able to get a well-paid job, being able to afford to live in a desired neighborhood, or being able to speak their mind without being judged based on their race. Unfortunately, neither schools nor society teaches the white people to see themselves as oppressors, leading them to unconsciously and unknowingly oppress the people of color. White people are seen as oppressive even if they do not perceive themselves to be that way.

The time of racism, segregation, and discrimination in the Civil Rights era was a difficult time for many people: whites, other races, and even children. Racism brought the realization to many people to think about how racism might affect their children and the way they were brought up. The real interesting fact is, that even though most Americans showed concern towards children there wasn 't a large percentage that took in consideration the feelings, thoughts, and affects that African- Americans and other racial children, including whites had towards the consent segregation, discrimination, and racism that went on in the Civil Rights era. Even the

On the first day of the experiment, the blue-eyed children, or the in-group, were told they were superior to the brown eyed children, the out-group. On top of being told they were better and smarter than the brown-eyed children, the out-group was not allowed to drink from the same fountain, play together at recess, or go back for seconds at lunch-time. The brown eyed children received less recess time, had to wait to go to lunch, and wore collars for easy recognition.

Research has shown that groups display tendencies to benefit members their own group, often at the expense of others. Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini (2015) state, “Unfortunately, the tendency to favor the members of one’s own group and dislike outsiders is universal” (p. 441). This tendency oftentimes leads to discrimination. Jane Elliot dramatically portrays this in a dubious classroom experiment. Ms. Elliot divided her third graders into two groups, those with blue eyes, and those with brown eyes. She then favored one group and denigrated the other. The negative environment created by Ms. Elliot affected he children who almost immediately began to display in-group bias. Those who were in the “superior” position, the blue-eyed children, favored their group and disparaged the “out-group.” The children began teasing the out-group and even suggested a yard-stick be used if a member of the out-group got “out-of-hand” (Peters, 1985, para