Jane Elliott's Sociological Approach

SCHOOL OF THOUGHT
Jane Elliott’s research falls into the sociological school of thought of inclusionism. With inclusionism, sociologists study the experiences of various ethnic groups in order to recognize the ethnic diversity within societies. Inclusionism addresses many problems related to discrimination, the end goal is to create an equal and diverse society where all races and ethnic groups feel comfortable and safe.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH
Jane Elliott’s approach to research is both interpretive and critical. The purpose of interpretive research is to provide an adequate reflection of people’s experience of the social world. With Jane’s Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment, she is trying to demonstrate the way coloured people face discrimination

in society. With the exercise that she implemented in her class of 3rd graders, she is trying to provide a reflection of how coloured people are treated, and how they feel when they are treated in that manner. Critical research is an approach used to improve the social conditions of the oppressed. Jane Elliott specifically was trying to address the issue of racism, in order to improve the social conditions of those who are affected by it. Whilst Jane Elliott uses both of these methodological approaches, she tends to collect data using comparative studies, a research method used more commonly with the critical approach. With her experiment, we see how the people with blue eyes are treated very differently from those with blue eyes, leaving room for us to make comparisons in order for us to fully understand the issue at hand. Jane Elliott’s research is qualitative, not quantitative. Qualitative research is conducted through observational/anecdotal methods, and strives to reflect relationships within social systems. Her research is also considered to be applied research, as it attempts to affect and impact social behaviours. The “Blue eyes-Brown eyes” experiment strives to reflect the discrimination that coloured people face within our social system, and affect/impact future social behaviours

FOCUS OF THEIR RESEARCH
The focus of Jane Elliott’s research is racism. With her famous “Blue eyes-Brown eyes” exercise, she was aiming to teach her students a lesson about racism. She felt that simply talking about racism would not allow her all-white class to fully understand the meaning of racism, and its effects. Therefore, she decided to conduct this now-famous experiment, which formed the basis for her career as a public speaker against discrimination. Jane Elliott went on to become a diversity trainer full-time. She still holds the exercise and gives lectures about it all over the United States, and in several locations around the world.

MAJOR CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Jane Elliott is famous for her “Blue eyes-Brown eyes” experiment.

The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered (in April 1968,) Jane Elliott’s third grade students were confused and upset. Growing up in a small, all-white town, they were not exposed to racism, and did not understand the meaning of it. Therefore, Jane Elliot decided to show her class what discrimination feels like. She informed the class that they were going to change the way things were done. The students were then divided by eye colour-blue eyes and brown eyes. The blue-eyed children were praised, and told that they were smarter, nicer, and better than the brown-eyed children in every way. Throughout the day, they were given special privileges that the brown-eyed children did not receive. Those privileges included extra recess time, access to the jungle gym, a second helping of food at lunch, sitting at the front of the classroom, and being allowed to participate in class discussions. In contrast, the brown-eyed children were forced to wear brown collars around their necks. They sat at the back of the classroom, and their behaviour and classroom performance was constantly criticized by the teacher. The students from the superior group (even those who were usually sweet and tolerant) became mean, and began to discriminate against the inferior group. The students from the inferior group would struggle with class assignments, and perform poorly on tests. On the second day of the experiment, the roles were reversed, making the brown-eyed children superior to the blue-eyed children. The results were similar, but the brown-eyed students didn’t treat their blue-eyed classmates quite as bad as they had treated them. When the exercise ended, the students hugged and cried with each other. Jane Elliott once said: "After you do this exercise, when the debriefing starts, when the pain is over and they're all back together, you find out how society could be if we really believed all this stuff that we

preach, if we really acted that way, you could feel as good about one another as those kids feel about one another after this exercise is over. You create instant cousins," says Elliott. "The kids said over and over, 'We're kind of like a family now.' They found out how to hurt one another and they found out how it feels to be hurt in that way and they refuse to hurt one another in that way again." This exercise put the children in the shoes of coloured people, helping them understand what discrimination feels like.

FUN FACTS
Jane Elliott has been invited to speak at 350 colleges and universities and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show five times.
In 1970, ABC produced a documentary about Elliott called The Eye of the Storm.