Concept of Self Facing Discrimination, Essay Example

The looking glass of the self is a two way glass that has greatly impacted how people view themselves as well as others.  The film “A Class Divided” showcases the immediate impact that socialization and social perception of self greatly impacted a third grade classroom.  While the teacher likely did not intend to have such a long-term impact on her young class, these children showed years later that they still remembered the lessons of this brief sociological experiment and have carried these lessons on in their own lives.  Above all else, the film illustrates the hardships of social discrimination that had occurred, and is still occurring, throughout the United States back in the 1960s.  Shortly after Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed, this teacher presented a unique social view to a young group of students to show them exactly how it feels to be socially discriminated.  As this experiment progressed, each child’s perception of themselves and their friends changed greatly.

The classroom was an all-white classroom that could not easily understand the effects of racism and social discrimination because they had not been discriminated based on the color of their own skin.  Instead, the teacher implemented a social system that provided benefits for children with blue eyes and negative treatment or consequences for children with brown eyes.  Immediately after the teacher had suggested the idea of blue eyed people being better than brown eyes in all areas, the faces on the children greatly changed.  Many of the children started looking around the classroom to try to determine where they ranked in the new social order and how they were to be perceived by their friends and peers.  Many of the young girls even looked heartbroken that they were to be treated so unfairly based on the color of their eyes.

Furthermore, each ensuing insult that was thrown at them by the teacher or their classmates continued to have a negative impact on their sense of self-worth and how they viewed themselves.  This became the clear illustration of the looking glass self that was tarnished by the smudge of a new social pecking order.  Many of the children even expressed that they felt their lives were very bad and that everything bad seemed to be happening to them at once.  A negative connotation quickly became associated with the brown eyes characteristic and many of the blue eyed children became angry and mean at the other group.  Treating them as outsiders, many of the blue-eyed children began to interact much differently with their peers as they once did because they had a newfound social sense of superiority.  This greatly changed the overall looking glass of their self image and showcases the impact of socialization on self-perception and external perceptions of individuals that are “different.”

There are several key concepts associated with this film in regards to socialization and how social construct plays a role in determining personal and group behaviors and viewpoints.  For instance, in the ongoing argument over human development, nature versus nurture was practically discarded and the social construct of the new classroom hierarchy became the main development tool for this classroom.  Socialization changed the rules and acceptable behaviors or views for all of the children.  Many friendships were broken and egos were either built up or destroyed based on the social discrimination policy created in the classroom.  Furthermore, the film also showed how agents of socialization in the form of the peer groups and even the teacher herself were critical to implementing social change and altering the looking glass of self.  The teacher was the instigating factor for the socialization; however, the students began to take the socialization to an entirely different level and began to treat the brown-eyed group very poorly.  Maltreatment and social issues are a serious concern in this country, and this film clearly illustrated exactly why these socialization factors must be addressed.