Running head: A CLASS DIVIDED 1

A class divided

Mohammad Najjar

Module 2 Essay
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Introduction

Different constructs within the society remodel individuals especially concerning the

character and attitude towards various aspects of life. Additionally, such constructs interfere with

the productivity and functionality within a group of people such as classroom context and society

in general. Therefore, this essay focuses on prejudice and discrimination and other social-

psychological elements that took the course in the classroom context within the video.

Consequently, prejudice involves a wrong perspective or attitude towards a person basing on

their social groups within a specific community. Discrimination, on the other hand, is an adverse

action or behavior towards a person basing on factors such as sex, social class and race.

From the video, Jane Elliot categorized the learners into categories basing on their eye

colors. For instance, she prioritized the blue-eyed people by praising them. She told the learners

that these individuals were bright and better in class. On the contrary, she said to them that

brown-eyed individuals were terrible. Furthermore, she discriminated against them by preventing

them from mixing with the blue-eyed learners during games time. From this incident, the

learners with brown eyes felt demoralized that their activity and performance during learning

deprived. The next day, the teacher changed the notion about the eye colors. She explained to the

class that her ideas about brown and blue-eyed people were wrong and that those individuals

with brown were better than those with blue eyes. As a result, the blue-eyed learners got

demoralized that their performance also reduced concerning the previous day performance. On

the other hand, the brown-eyed students were motivated to learn by learning that they were

superior.

Considering these lessons, social categorization affects the nature and general

performance of an individual. For instance, with the feeling of superiority for being in the
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exclusive social category, an individual develops the inner motivation that, in turn, raises their

level of performance through their daily routines or activities. However, falling under the

disadvantaged groups undermines their functionality and potential to perform and be productive

within the community as evident from the experiment to teach learners on discrimination in the

video.

The recategorization of learners basing on their eye color was an essential aspect of the

experiment. The teacher used this process to make every individual feel how painful it was to be

discriminated against and undermined due to different aspects of life such as eye color.

Consequently, through this recategorization, the children practically realized the impact of

discrimination (Lucas, 2015). For example, their performance was lowered by their depreciated

dignity. Besides, the other two social psychological constructs that were revealed in ‘A Class

Divided’ include ingroup favors and discrimination; for instance, the learners were privileged

based on their eye color wherein the process, the two groups distanced from each other after

developing different perspectives about each other.

Frontline segments

In the first segment, the blue-eyed individuals were very active and positive that learning

was efficient and exiting (0 to 10 minutes). As a result, their performance improved, unlike the

blue-eyed individuals. The second segment focuses on the prioritization of the other group were

third prioritization alters their performances (11 minutes). Additionally, this section focused on

teaching about the disadvantages of discrimination of any kind. The third segment presents the

confirmation of the grade three lessons’ impacts on the learners after 14 years (19 minutes).

According to adult teaching, the students had learned and retained the concepts of the experience

that 14 years later, they still maintained that discrimination basing on any element is not
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appropriate. Therefore, section five presents the response of the adults where they all confirm

that everyone is equal and deserves similar treatment regardless of their races gender or social

class.

Reference

Lucas, S. G. (2015). A guide to teaching introductory psychology. John Wiley & Sons.