The Brown eyes-blue eyes exercise on discrimination: break down
Key researcher: Jane Elliot
Year: first exercise conducted 1968
Study type: Participant Observation
Participants: first study - a class of third-grade students
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King during the prime decade of the civil rights movement, Jane had enough of the racial discrimination within America. The next day, she decided to conduct an experiment of which would teach the children in her predominantly white third grade class what discrimination felt like and to show others how exactly discrimination comes about - and how ridiculous the concept of it is.
On the first day of this experiment, the class were told that blue eyed children were superior to brown eyed children. In order to de-individualise the students with brown eyes - as well as to make them distinguishable- they were made to wear brown collars during school time. Miss Elliot told the students that those with brown eyes were ‘dumber’, less well behaved and could not drink out of the water fountains but paper cups instead, they got a 5 minute shorter break time and other children with blue eyes were discouraged from playing with them.
The children were observed at lunch time that day and then asked to feedback their experience in class afterwards.
On the second day, the roles were reversed - the brown eyed students were now superior and the blue eyed pupils faced the discriminatory rules. Blue eyed people were given collars by brown eyed people and they weren’t allowed to use playground equipment or play with brown eyed children.
The children gave feedback in the afternoon again. On both days the children were tested with phoenix cards so their achievements on both days could be compared.
The children acted almost immediately on the information they had been given. Some of he children reported feeling as though miss Elliot had ‘taken away their best friends’. 2 boys had even got into a fight. The children with brown eyed had lost their identity and were referred to as ‘brown eyed’ by their peers.
The results using the phoenix cards were compared on the two days. Brown eyed pupils took much longer to complete the cards on the first day than they had the second day. This is likely because they had been told they were stupid and slow - this could’ve acted as a self fulfilling prophecy.
Towards the end, children were relieved to remove their collars and even chose throw them away - they claimed to have learned something and now knew not to discriminate.
This study shows how we are conditioned to look at people differently and judge who they are based on their appearance and how shallow characteristics are used to fuel this- this is something that could likely take place during socialisation. It highlights the importance of de-individualisation in discriminatory behaviour. This study shows how we can discriminate based on seemingly ridiculous things. It also shows how this can impact those whom are discriminated against - they experience a lower self esteem and this can lead to them then fulfilling their labels - hence the dramatic difference in test scores. This study had a large impact, and although it has been criticised for its ethics, is still used today and most importantly shows how discriminatory tendencies can be unlearned and reversed.
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