Racial Legacies & Learning X:
Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes

October 20, 2003

Prepared by the Staff of Rentschler Library
Miami University Hamilton

Print Resources

Lahiri, Indra. Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes: Linking Perceptions and Performance: Facilitator Guide. Sellersville, PA: Bullseye Publishing, 2002.

Peters, William. A Class Divided: Then and Now. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Audiovisual Resources

The Angry Eye: With Jane Elliott. AdmireEntertainment, 2001.
A dynamic and provocative documentary film, showcasing Jane Elliott's world famous blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise in discrimination. White young American college students from various backgrounds are forced to experience the same kind of racist treatment African Americans and other minorities have been receiving for years.

Blue Eyed. Bertram Verhaag, Jane Elliott. San Francisco: California Newsreel, 1996.
Jane Elliott conducts a workshop where an arbitrarily selected group of individuals is targeted to experience prejudice and bigotry. Based on the blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise.

The Eye of the Storm. ABC News. Mount Kisco, NY: Center for Humanities, 1985.
This award winning documentary records an innovative experiment in which a third-grade teacher divides her all-white class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed, making each group superior or inferior on successive days. Demonstrates the nature and effects of bigotry by showing changes brought about in their behavior and learning patterns.

The Stolen Eye. SBS Independent, Anamax Media, and Angry Eye Productions. San Francisco: California Newsreel, 2002.
Jane Elliott performs her famous blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise with a group of white and Aborigine adults in Australia.

The Essential Blue Eyed: 50 Minute Trainer's Edition and 36 Minute Debriefing. Bertram Verhaag. San Francisco: California Newsreel, 1999.
Jane Elliott conducts a diversity training workshop where an arbitrarily selected group of individuals is targeted to experience prejudice and bigotry. The workshop is based on the blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise.

A Class Divided. William Peters, Charlie Cobb. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1986.
This documentary reunites Jane Elliott and her class after 15 years to relate the enduring effects of their blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise.