Discrimination In The Classroom: Case Study

Question 1

In Elliot’s experiment, the implications of discrimination under arbitrary settings were evident. The children were classified into groups of superior and inferior solely based on their eye colour. They were then designated to take turns to become the superior group in the classroom.

In the beginning, the children managed to identify the “inferior group” of people who had not been treated equally in the society, especially the black people. The children initially thought that they could completely understand what the superior groups would feel when suffering from discriminations; however, the result of Elliot’s experiment had proven them wrong. The interesting part was that although the existence of inferior groups was always perceivable,

In addition, the children had their own way of seeing themselves, they have their “original identity” (Taylor, 1994, p.81). Meanwhile, the blue-eyed peers and their teacher were considered as “significant others” (Taylor, 1994, p.79) for them. However, the self-confidence of brown-eyed children was soon replaced by self-doubt shortly after more and more unfavorable “truths” were revealed and reiterated by the “significant others” in the dominant group (Tatum, 1999). Such dialogical relations (Taylor, 1994) between the brown-eyed children with their teacher and peers had created a “new” identity for them as “the inferior”.

The term “brown-eyed” was merely a neutral descriptive term which is used to indicate the colour of one’s eyes. However, it has inadvertently turned into a negative term since it became an “inferior label” which might convey discriminative messages for the brown-eyed children as they were recognised as the members of inferior group. It was then used as an insulting weapon by the dominants towards the brown-eyed children. As a result, the classroom was no longer a difference-blind setting, but ultimately became strongly discriminative to the inferior groups (Taylor,

A “mixture” of these three elements, however, is usually formed in Singapore, and it has been mentioned that one’s ethnicity and culture came after “race” (Benjamin, 1976). The second language, which is also known as the “mother tongue”, serves as a distinctive indicator to every individual’s ethnic identity in Singapore (Lian & Hill, 1995). In other words, only can one’s ethnic identity be fully established after the mother tongue is clearly defined (Benjamin, 1976). The relationship between an individual and the culture practised is also defined by the educational system (Benjamin, 1976), especially the bilingual education in Singapore. Mother tongue as a model of “cultural ballast” (Benjamin, 1976, p.124) is a significant identification of one’s ethnicity in