Although her original "study" was an exercise and not an experiment it
would make a lot of sense to turn her exercise into an experiment and
directly test the short and long term effects. It would be quite doable
to randomly assign participants to one of her worshops OR to a control
group in which they watched the video and discussed it (or perhaps
engaged in one of several other existing discrimination sensitivity
programs). People's self report of having changed is hardly more
convincing than people reporting that magnets help with their knee pain.
I'd like to see much better evidence (really any scientific evidence)
that these programs are having a "powerful impact".
I think most of us would agree that people can ethically charge for
services or training they provide. What is surprising to me about the
$10,000 cost is that she comes off on the video as a person who is
genuinely concerned with reducing prejudice and discrimination in the
world. If she believes her program is working wouldn't you want it to be
accessible to others? I can't really imagine who would have $10,000 to
attend such a program.
Marie
Herb Coleman wrote:
Subject: Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment - Lucrative Market
From: Jean-Marc Perreault <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:26:40 -0800
X-Message-Number: 1
Greetings everyone,
I was speaking with a colleague recently who
mentioned she
had attended a workshop given by Jane Elliott (made famous through her
ingenuous blue eyes brown eyes experiment). She said (my colleague) the
workshop was aimed at making "white people" understand what it is
like to be
the victim of racism. Within a few hours only, these individuals are
apparently brought to experience discrimination, and made aware of
their own
biases. ...
Your first mistake was in calling her EXERCISE an EXPERIMENT. When
she presented at the University of Texas at Austin several years ago
she made it clear that she does not experiment with children or
adults. She uses the exercise to make people aware of what's already
going on. When asked about the cognitive and emotional discomfort
caused, she asks is it better to allow people to go discriminating and
and ignoring discrimination that is destroying peoples' lives?
What's interesting is that those who have been through her workshops,
even those whom she "beat up" on the most come away saying the
experience was invaluable. They all happy they've been through it.
This comes from several classes of students as well as business people
she's done the workshop for. Of course this is her reporting with her
video. However, since it's been done many times and over many years,
I would suspect that anyone who had a different reaction would have
spoken up by now.
As for the ethics of what she's charging, I just have to ask , how
many of us are teaching for free? How many of us write textbooks or
other books and give them away? I'm sure that the training transforms
people in a way that is permanent. Also remember in this training
she's basically training you to replace her. Certainly, I would wish
that she would be willing to train more people for less (since she's
not getting any younger). What's even more shocking is that in almost
40 years no one else seems to come close to having as powerful an impact.
Of course that's just my opinion...or is it?
--
*********************************************
Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Dickinson College, P.O. Box 1773
Carlisle, PA 17013
Office: (717) 245-1562, Fax: (717) 245-1971
Webpage: www.dickinson.edu/~helwegm
*********************************************
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