Attitudes assignment- a class divided. Social Experiment in a primary school class to examine racism.

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Mrs. Elliot completely changed the attitude of her primary school class. This took a few stages, where the children were put in other people’s “moccasins”, as well as in their own. By changing the attitudes of these children, she changed all three aspects of attitude. They are the cognitive, behavioural, and affective elements of attitude. These three aspects, otherwise known as the tripartite model of attitudes must change in order for a new attitude to be shown.

The experiment that she conducted was on an all-white primary school class in a segregated all-white town. This town had somewhat hidden racism against black people as well as against other minorities, and this sort of behaviour was expected and was considered normal in the area. The adults believed that black people were not equal and were considered of a lower class of society. Their tripartite model of attitude would be something like this:

COGNITIVE (thinking concepts, ideas) – believing that black people are not as good as them, are liars, thieves and are less intelligent.

BEHAVIOURAL (actions) – Making fun of black people, treating them differently, being rude, etc.

AFFECTIVE (emotions, feelings)- Feeling hatred towards black people, feeling a sense of superiority, feeling angry that black people live here, etc.

Before Mrs. Elliot first started the experiment, the only opinions expressed to the children would probably have been from their parents as well as other people in the area. Naturally this would mean that the attitude of the children to black people and other minorities in the area would be that of their parents and of other adults. Though, the children did not seem old enough to really have their own personal point of view. They subconsciously behaved, thought, and felt in the same way their parents did about this issue- though not understanding why they did. They just believed in what their parents told them. That Santa has a magic toy factory in the North Pole, and that the Easter bunny and the Tooth Fairy are close friends, might have once been part of their reality.

The children would have an “attitude” showing that they believed that the minorities in the area were of a lower class than them and reacted to this in a cognitive, emotional, and behavioural manner.  

They reacted like this not because of their personal experience with minorities- but because of what was said about these minorities. And because of how respective figures and peers to the child treated the minorities. Black people would have been considered not equal to them, and all white people were considered equal as well as their friends. The class would have thought of each other as friends and would have felt a sense of unity and trust amongst each other. This all changed when she separated them.

Mrs. Elliot separated them into two groups: brown eyes and blue eyes. Mrs. Elliot told them that the brown eyed children were not as good as blue eyed children and that they couldn’t play together. She told them that blue eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. Brown eyed children were not allowed to drink out of the water fountain and had to use paper cups. She gave the blue eyed children extra privileges and the brown eyed children extra restrictions.

Even if adults were put into this situation, they would have felt demoralised when restrictions were put on them. They would have felt a sense of superiority when extra privileges were given to them. But they would have hidden the feelings of demoralisation as much as they could, and they would have spoken out about superiority. This is exactly what happened with this class of primary school children.

“I watched what had been marvellous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating, little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes.”

Almost instantly, you could sense the separation. Children who had been best of friends were now the worst of enemies.

Their tripartite model of attitude at present would be alike the following:












The brown eyed children would at this point feel inferior. All their thoughts began to draw to feeling second-rate, which resulted in them performing poorly in tests. They thought that they were not capable of things that they were capable of; and they thought that they could not succeed when they could. All thoughts lead to the collars. The collars made them inferior.

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The next day blue-eyed people were considered inferior instead of brown-eyed people.

“JANE ELLIOTT: I use phonics. We use the card pack, and the children, the brown-eyed children were in the low class the first day and it took them five and a half minutes to get through the card pack. The second day it took them two and a half minutes. The only thing that had changed was the fact that now they were superior people.

Jane Elliott: You went faster than I ever had anyone go through the card pack. Why couldn't you get them yesterday?

Donna: We ...

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