Aim: to teach her class what it felt like to be victims of discrimination.
Method: Elliott told her class the following:
- blue-eyed children are smarter than those with brown eyes,
- blue-eyed children are the best people in the room,
- brown-eyed children cannot play with blue-eyed children in the playground,
- and brown-eyed children cannot use the drinking fountain.
Results: the reaction of the children to these statements was immediate. The blue-eyed children were delighted, arrogant and became vicious. The brown-eyed children were angry, saddened, confused and withdrawn. Fights broke out in the playground between children who had been best friends the day before. The following day, Elliott reversed the experiment, and…