Frontline: “A Class Divided” Video Questions
Name ____________________
1. What did the children's body language indicate about the impact of discrimination?
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2. How did the negative and positive labels placed on a group become self-fulfilling prophecies?
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3. Both Elliott and her former students talk about whether or not this exercise should be done with all children. What
do you think? If the exercise could be harmful to children, as Elliott suggests, what do you think actual
discrimination might do?
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4. What features did Elliott ascribe to the superior and inferior groups and how did those characteristics reflect
stereotypes about blacks and whites?
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5. How did Elliott's discrimination create no-win situations for those placed in the inferior group? How did she
selectively interpret behavior to confirm the stereotypes she had assigned?
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6. At recess, two of the boys from different groups get in a fight. Elliott asks the one who was teased if responding
with violence made him feel better or made the teasing stop. What does the answer suggest about the use of
violence as a political strategy? At the time, who was using violence for political purposes and why?
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7. How do we learn prejudice?
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8. Can we/should we be colorblind?
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9. It's easy to understand why third-graders might not refuse to obey their teacher, but when the exercise is done
with the prison guards, why don't any of the adults object?
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10. In the prison seminar, one of the white women asserts that all people face some kind of discrimination. Another
woman challenges her, claiming that whites can't really know what it's like to face discrimination every minute of
every day. What do you think?
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Score
Expectation
4
-Response indicates a
thorough understanding of the
reading and concepts
-Fulfills all requirements of
the task
-Necessary support/examples
are included and text-based
but NOT IN A.W.E.
-Deep analysis is evident
-Response is clearly expressed
3
-Response indicates an
understanding of the reading
and concepts
-Fulfills all requirements of
the task
-Support/ examples are
included but not completely
text-based (or are in A.W.E)
-Analysis is evident
2
-Response indicates a partial
understanding of the reading
and concepts
-Fulfills some requirements of
the task
-Support/ examples are
included which: may/not be
text-based, too broad or
simplistic, incomplete or
omitted
1-0
-Response indicates a very
limited understanding of the
reading and concepts or a
response may be missing
-Fulfills the minimal
requirements of the task or no
requirements of the task
-Support/ examples are
incomplete, not relative or
missing
RACE TIMELINE - GO DEEPER
Race is a modern idea - it hasn't always been with us. In ancient times, language, religion, status, and class distinctions were more
important than physical appearance. In America, a set of specific historical circumstances led to the world's first race-based slave
system.
The concept of race did not originate with science. On the contrary, science emerged in the late 18th century and helped validate
existing racial ideas and "prove" a natural hierarchy of groups. Throughout our history, the search for racial differences has been
fueled by preconceived notions of inferiority and superiority. Even today, scientists are influenced by their social context.
Ideas and definitions of race have changed over time, depending on social and political climate. Historically, racial categories were not
neutral or objective. Groups were differentiated so they could be excluded or disadvantaged, often in explicit ways. For example, in
the early 20th century, U.S. courts had to decide who was legally white and who wasn't for the purposes of naturalized citizenship.
This was done in arbitrary and sometimes contradictory ways.
Groups such as African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans have played a significant role in shaping
American society. Many of the freedoms we take for granted were fought for and won by those who were originally excluded by
discriminatory laws and practices. In struggling for their own inclusion, nonwhites have guaranteed fair treatment and equal rights for
everyone.
Which came first - slavery or race?
Throughout human history, societies have enslaved others due to conquest, war or debt, but not based on physical difference. The
word "slave" in fact comes from "Slav": prisoners of Slavonic tribes captured by Germans and sold to Arabs during the Middle Ages.
Prior to the Enlightenment, slavery was simply a fact of life, unquestioned. Race, on the other hand, is a much more recent idea, tied
up with the founding of the U.S.
In colonial America, our early economy was based largely on slavery. When the new concept of freedom was introduced during the
American Revolution, it created a moral contradiction: how could a nation that proclaimed equality and the natural rights of man hold
slaves? The idea of race helped resolve the contradiction by setting Africans apart. The notion of natural Black inferiority helped our
founding fathers justify denying slaves the rights and entitlements that others took for granted.
Later, as the abolitionist movement gained popularity and attacks on slavery grew, so did arguments in its defense. Slavery was no
longer explained as a necessary evil, but justified as a positive good. The rationale for slavery was so strong that after emancipation,
ideas of innate inferiority and superiority not only persisted but were intensified.
Were Africans enslaved because they were thought to be inferior?
In colonial America, Africans weren't enslaved because they were thought to be inferior. On the contrary, they were valued for their
skill as farmers and desired for their labor. Planters had previously tried enslaving Native Americans, but many escaped and hid
among neighboring tribes or were stricken by diseases brought to the New World by Europeans.
In the early years of the colonies, the majority of workers were poor indentured servants from England. In fact, during Virginia's first
century, 100,000 of the 130,000 Englishmen who crossed the Atlantic were indentured servants. Conditions of servitude were
miserable, and nearly two thirds died before their term of indenture ended. After several decades, African slaves began arriving in the
U.S. and worked side by side with indentured servants. Many played together, intermarried, and ran away together. Racial categories
were fluid, and slavery was not yet codified into law.
In the mid-17th century, a crisis arose in the colonies. As economic conditions in Mother England improved, the number of volunteers
willing to journey across the Atlantic to endure such harsh treatment dropped dramatically, causing a labor shortage. At the same time,
tension and hostilities were mounting domestically, as more servants were surviving their indenture and demanding land from the
planter elite. The entire plantation labor system and colonial social hierarchy was threatened; the situation came to a head when poor
servants and slaves allied and attacked the elite classes during Bacon's Rebellion.
After the system of indentured servitude proved unstable, planters turned increasingly to African slavery and began writing laws to
divide Blacks from whites. Coincidentally, African slaves became more available at this time. Poor whites were given new
entitlements and opportunities, including as overseers to police the slave population. Over time, they began to identify more with
wealthy whites, and the degradation of slavery became identified more and more with Blackness.