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The 1985 film, “A Class Divided,” focuses on teacher, Jane Elliott’s demonstrations of
inequality she simulates in her classroom and beyond. Her demonstration divided her class
between the blue-eyed (blues) and the brown-eyed (browns). Within three days, she assigned one
group, then the other to be the “superior” group for the day, and what was observed was the
development of prejudice and discrimination amongst peers. She applied a similar experiment
amongst adults. This experiment highlights several points in the labeling theory, a theory asserting
that deviance is determined by labels and social context, affecting one’s self-concept and how
others interact with the labeled individual (Ferris and Stein 2016: 156). This film displayed
examples of the “looking-glass self,” tertiary deviance and stereotype threat.
The concept of the “looking-glass self” was presented by American sociologist, Charles
Cooley. The idea refers to how an individual sees themselves according to how others perceive
them. (Ferris and Stein 2016: 157). Applying this to the film, one example of this concept is when
looking at the academic performances of the children. On the day where the browns were ‘lesser’
than the blues, the record time for the browns to complete their assignment, a card pack, was 5.5
minutes. On the day where they were deemed “superior,” it took them 2.5 minutes. When asked
why they were went slower the day before, it was stated that they “couldn’t think as well because
they had the collars on” (Cobb and Peters 1985). For context, the group that was ‘lesser’ for the day
had to wear collars. Anyways, this reinforces the idea that their poor academic performance for the
day was caused by their feeling of inferiority represented through the collars. For the blues, the
same result occurred as well. The kids stated that they “[knew] they weren’t going to make it,” even
though they had done so faster on the day before, when they were superior. Again, it was stated
that they were thinking about the collars. Their poor performance, through a labeling theorist’s
perspective, was caused by the fact that Mrs. Elliot had told the superior groups that they were “the
better people,” being smarter, less wasteful, etc. Observed were the labels of being a certain eyecolor and the associations to intelligence they had affecting the children’s own confidence and
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performance in their academic abilities. The association to being smarter/less smart was
internalized into the children.
Tertiary deviance is when one labeled as deviant rejects their title and tries to redefine their
“deviant” characteristics as normal. When Elliot simulates her model in an adult environment,
tertiary deviance is displayed first from this one ‘inferior’ blue-eyed woman. For the sake of clarity,
she will be referred to as Jill. After an argument between Jill and Elliot, Jill begins talking out and
knowingly insults Elliot. She states that she “didn’t want to be where [Elliot was]” and that “loved
where she [herself] was” position-wise, implying that where she was was an okay place to be in. It
can be seen that Jill was defining her position as normal and acceptable. Even taking pride in her
position. Moreover, she describes aspects of her behavior towards Elliot as “kindness” on her part,
further justifying her behavior.
Stereotype threat occurs when the fear of poor performance and confirming negative
stereotypes of their group causes one to perform poorly (Ferris and Stein 2016: 158). In the film,
when Elliot was demonstrating on adults, the stereotype that blues were poor listeners, stubborn
and un-intelligence was given. A blue man was caught not taking notes after being told to and when
asked why, he said he didn’t need to since it was all in his head. Here, it can be argued that he was
trying to show that he didn’t need to take notes because he was smart enough to remember it, but
when asked to repeat her lesson so far, he responded with vague and lacking answers, not even
knowing being able to remember the 2nd and 3rd part of her lesson. Now he could have easily
remembered this lesson, but stereotype threat may have occurred in which his fear to confirm his
un-intelligence and lack of listening skills caused him to answer and/or listen poorly. He even
stated that at times where he speak up, he’d be “back in a powerless situation” in which he would
be further confirming the negative aspects of his stereotype (Cobb and Peters, 1985).
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Cobb, Charlie and William Peters. 1985. A Class divided. PBS. Retrieved October 14, 2017
(https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/).
Ferris, Kerry and Jill Stein. 2016. The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology. 5th Edition.
New York: W.W. Norton.