Jane Elliot Experiment When Teacher Jane Elliot Reaction Paper

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Jane Elliot Experiment

When teacher Jane Elliot decided to separate her class into two groups, those with blue-eyes and those with brown-eyes, and alternately deemed one of the groups as superior, she was not doing so simply to make young children feel bad. The first time she did the experiment, it was with the goal of answering a student's question about why any person would want to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. (CRG@CGP, 2011). To the children in her third-grade class, the idea that anyone could hate another person, simply because of the color of his skin and how his vision threatened the racially-biased status quo was incomprehensible. Elliot's goal was to demonstrate how bias develops and why the privileged group would fight to keep that status. However, she did not anticipate that the effect of the experiment would be so dramatic or pervasive; not only did the privileged group exercise that privilege, but the disadvantaged group demonstrated a lack of equality, despite the fact that the privileged groups changed on a daily basis. The results of the experiments were shocking.

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Not only did the children go along with Elliot's idea that one group was superior to the other for the sake of role-play, but they embraced the stereotypes. Those in the superior groups embraced their superiority and became vicious and discriminating towards their classmates. Those in the inferior groups displayed subservient body language and took greater lengths of time to complete their tasks.

Being assigned to the different groups impacted individual behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and moods. The children clearly internalized the labels, with children being labeled inferior acting inferior and children being labeled superior acting. One of the biggest changes is that the children learned that rewards were not based directly on behavior. Therefore, the children experiencing discrimination seemed to acknowledge the idea of defeat and did not attempt to excel in the same way as the children in the superior group. The children in the inferior group seemed depressed and even frightened, while the children in the superior group quickly discarded social niceties when they realized….....

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