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Prejudice and discrimination social psychology essay
Discrimination and prejudice social psychology essay
Discrimination and prejudice social psychology essay
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In society today, everyone is likely to experience some form of discrimination or prejudice. On April 15, 1968, a teacher in Riceville, Iowa named Jane Elliot conducted an experiment on her third grade class. The experiment conducted allowed students to experience first hand the concept of discrimination. The inspiration for this experiment followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and was documented as a movie titled, “A Class Divided”. It served as an eye opener for many individuals into the world of racism and discrimination. The term “racism”, is defined in the dictionary as doctrine that one race is more superior (Webster,1970) and “discrimination”, is defined as the denial of opportunities and equal …show more content…
The lesson demonstrated on the third graders seemed to have had a lasting impression on the children because when these students caught up later in their adult lives, some had mentioned the benefits that resulted in her lesson and how they were passing on the knowledge of anti-discrimination to their young ones. They also mentioned that there were instances when they had to ignore the ignorance of people who disapproved whites associating with blacks. This lesson had a lasting positive impression because it shaped them as an adult and the way they lived. Also each adult experienced what it was like to be discriminated because of their eye color. Children do not understand the concept of the word “discrimination” until they are put into that situation. For instance, when the blue eyed children were deemed superior than the brown eyed children, they acted as so. They were instructed not to speak to or play with the brown eyed children because they were better than that. As a result some students lost their friends during recess because of the rules put in place, a child even punched another student because they could not handle the …show more content…
Elliot separated the individuals once again based on their eye color and made the brown eyed adults feel superior over the blue eyed adults. The adults reacted differently to the experiment. In my opinion they did not view Elliot as an authoritative figure because they share the same age group, also because she was blue eyed just like the ones she deemed unfit and misbehaved. As a result the brown-eyed adults went along with everything Elliot said and felt a power of authority because they were told that they were better than the blue-eyed people. The objective of this experiment was not nearly as successful for the adults as it was for the third graders. The responses of the blue eyed adults honestly disgusted me because they acted as though they all know what it was like to fall victim to discrimination, their experience of discrimination was to a lesser
Racism, a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one 's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others. Racism was one of John Howard Griffin, the writer of a very well known inequality book of Black Like Me, main topics for his writings. Being born and raised in the city of Dallas, Texas with his siblings and parents he saw much racism as a young child, but he never really noticed it until he left for Europe when he was fifteen. To broaden his education and continue his studies, he moved to France at a young age. Soon after living in France and Europe,
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
This passage bothered me. It is probably the part that bugged me the most about this book. There are many African Americans who are better behaved, smarter, more artistic, more athletic, etc. then white children. There are also many African Americans who are less educated and more poorly behaved than white children, but the same for both of these things go with white children. It bothers me that she knows that if the worst child in the class was white she wouldn't care if the best child in the class was white. I think that throughout the book she often generalizes with African Americans and doesn't even realize it. She claims that she is getting better, but I don't think that she really is. She keeps trying to have the African American children become the same as the white children.
After watching the documentary, “A Class Divided,” I was very impressed by the lesson that the teacher was performing with her students. Discrimination is an issue that has been around for a long time dating back to slavery and probably before that. Over time, society has become more welcoming but discrimination still exists today and may never completely go away. By doing this exercise with her students, the teacher is changing the world. If a group of ten people went through this exercise, then they learn that everyone is the same and they stop discriminating based on race. Those ten people later go on and tell their children, friends, and family about this exercise and they may also have a change of heart. That number now changes from ten to twenty to thirty. In the documentary, the teacher mentioned that this exercise is hurtful to some people and should not be performed on everyone because of controversial issues and how it can be emotionally traumatizing for some people. A small group still does so much for a society to change and evolve. The brown eye, blue eye method has a large impact and I wish more people knew of it
Being prejudice is when one is judged due to another’s preconceived ideas and a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. In her experiment with her students, it was shown that the kids went from having a nice bond to criticizing each other. Depending on the day that is was the students made fun of the “dumber” kids, simply because the teacher said they were “dumber”. When Elliot experimented with the adults it got a bit more intense. The people with the blue eyes, were furious because Elliot kept claiming that those with Blue eyes were “dumber,” making those with brown eyes to look superior. The purpose of this experiment was to show that prejudice is very common. Many white folks would make prejudice judgments of black folks that weren’t necessarily true. This is racism, creating false ideas about the opposite group. False ideas, can travel quickly which will soon enough convince others that the false ideas are actually true. Also, the actions of one person shouldn’t speak for the whole group. That is the problem with society, one black man robs and now every black man is labeled as a threat. One white guy makes a racist comment and now all white people are labeled as
Racism (n): the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other race (Wordnet search, 1), a controversial topic in today’s society, a subject that many people try to sweep under the rug, but yet a detrimental problem that has been present in America since the colonial era. Will this dilemma come to a halt? Can all Americans see each other as equals despite their skin color and nationality; and what role has it played in past generations versus today’s generations and how will it affect our future? Has this on going way of thinking gotten better or worse? These are questions raised when many think about the subject; especially members of American ethnic groups and backgrounds, because most have dealt with racial discrimination in their life time.
Let’s start with the definition of racism. Racism refers to the belief that race is the primary determinant of human capacities, that a certain race is inherently superior or inferior to others, and/or that individuals should be treated differently based on their ascribed race.
The exercise showed how a child that never had any racism towards them in the exercise they turned against their friends because of the color of their eyes. The children for those two days got the chance to experience both sides of discrimination. The children once day felt segregated and inferior to the children that were placed in the group with more privilege. Then the next day, the children that were placed in the privileged group were in the segregated group. The theory is if you can teach a child how to discriminate against a person that you can just as easily teach them how not to.
In 1995, the Carnegie Corporation commissioned a number of papers to summarize research that could be used to improve race relations in schools and youth organizations. One way to fight against racism is to “start teaching the importance of and strategies for positive intergroup relations when children are young”(Teaching Tolerance,). Bias is learned at an early age, often at home, so schools should offer lessons of tolerance and
Racism comes in many forms ad can be expressed in many different societies in various ways. 1 The dictionary defines racism as the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. This definition of racism makes it clear that it is a perceived point of view that implies prejudice towards people or a person based solely on their race. Racism has been an issue in many societies for many years and still is an issue in modern society. 2 Recently in the U.S. many cases of racism towards African Americans have been shown in the media. However racism is not just a U.S. culture based issue but also a cross-cultural issue
“There are a few views regarding on the definitions of racism by experts. Racism can be defined as the belief that all members of a purported race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or other races”. (Hoyt, C., 2012) “Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply on the basis of their race and that some racial groups are superior to others”. (Anup, S., 2010) “Racism is based on a hierarchy of physical differences. Racism is not only a network of attitudes, beliefs, and convictions; it also refers to behaviors, practices, and actions. Racism is a social construction”. (Carignan, N. et al, 2005)
According to Roget's Super Thesaurus, racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, bigotry, bias, segregation, apartheid, intolerance, and white supremacy, (463). Throug...
Racism is a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others. This trend has been around for a long time, from slaves, to discrimination, etc. Although in many cases, people in the time period often tend to act like it does not exist. When looking back on certain situations and their aftermath people then realize the true nature of racism. In 1962, 85% of whites thought that black children in their community had just as good of a chance of getting a good education as white children. The constant trend for lack of knowledge about racism and/or discrimination is real. Now, whites, realize that in 1962 black children did not have as good of a chance, if any, of getting a good education in comparison to white children. In 1969 nearly half of all whites (45%) believed that blacks had a better chance of getting a good-paying job than they did. Once again history repeated itself, in that many whites now realize that blacks not only did not have a better chance of getting a good-paying job than they did, they had a worse chance. (Abagond)
Back in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, Jane Elliot a third-grade teacher in Iowa watched the news reporter speak on the killing of Martin Luther King Jr and Elliot was shocked and appalled that the news reporter couldn’t understand what the black community was going through at the time. Jane Elliot wanted to teach her third grade students back in Iowa about racisms and came up with an exercise to showcase how discrimination and racism can be done within only a couple of days. Over a week Jane Elliot experience showed how friends became enemies and treated each other different because the colour of their eyes. Throughout the experience that Jane Elliot did, it was being recorded and would letter be called, “A Class Divided”.
To unlearn racism is not an easy thing to do. It requires a lot of time and effort because human belief is not something that we could change if we want to. The only way to reframe people’s perception of racism or any kind of discrimination is to let them become a victim of it. Only when people become a victim of discrimination do they realize how painful it is. I believe that Jane Elliott’s teaching method is a good idea to reframe racism. However, there are always two sides of a coin. Jane Elliott’s method also has both advantages and drawbacks. Instead of teaching only theory like other educators would do, doing this is definitely more practical. It instantly shows the participants how it feels like to be segregated. As we saw what happened in the movie, after Elliott’s lessons, her students all changed their attitude from negative to positive. They even came back to thank Elliott after 20 years. Obviously, this is a meaningful lecture for them. There’s also a downside of Jane Elliott’s method; that it’s too harsh. If it weren’t for Jane Elliott, no one would able have a lasting effect. When I saw a participant crying during her lesson, I partly disapproved of her method. I know she had her point but not all of her students deserved to be treated like