Young Girls Compare White Baby Doll to Black Doll

A Revealing Experiment:

Brown five. Board and "The Doll Test"

Doctors Kenneth and Mamie Clark and "The Doll Test"

In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark designed and conducted a series of experiments known colloquially as "the doll tests" to study the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children.

 Drs. Clark used four dolls, identical except for color, to test children's racial perceptions. Their subjects, children between the ages of three to vii, were asked to identify both the race of the dolls and which color doll they prefer. A majority of the children preferred the white doll and assigned positive characteristics to it. The Clarks concluded that "prejudice, discrimination, and segregation" created a feeling of inferiority among African-American children and damaged their self-esteem.

The doll test was only one part of Dr. Clark'southward testimony in Brown – it did non constitute the largest portion of his analysis and expert report. His conclusions during his testimony were based on a comprehensive analysis of the near cut-edge psychology scholarship of the period.

A "Disturbing" Result

In an interview on the award-winning PBS documentary of the Civil Rights motility, "Eyes on the Prize," Dr. Kenneth Clark recalled: "The Dolls Exam was an effort on the part of my married woman and me to study the development of the sense of self-esteem in children. Nosotros worked with Negro children—I'll call black children—to see the extent to which their color, their sense of their own race and status, influenced their judgment nearly themselves, self-esteem. We've now—this research, past the way, was done long before we had any notion that the NAACP or that the public officials would be concerned with our results. In fact, we did the study xiv years before Brown, and the lawyers of the NAACP learned about it and came and asked united states of america if we thought it was relevant to what they were planning to do in terms of the Brown determination cases. And we told them it was up to them to make that decision and we did not do it for litigation. We did it to communicate to our colleagues in psychology the influence of race and color and status on the self-esteem of children."

In a particularly memorable episode, while Dr. Clark was conducting experiments in rural Arkansas, he asked a black child which doll was most like him. The child responded by smiling and pointing to the brown doll: "That's a nigger. I'g a nigger." Dr. Clark described this experience "every bit disturbing, or more disturbing, than the children in Massachusetts who would refuse to answer the question or who would cry and run out of the room."

"The Doll Test" in Dark-brown five. Lath of Didactics

The Brown team relied on the testimonies and enquiry of social scientists throughout their legal strategy. Robert Carter, in particular, spearheaded this endeavour and worked to enlist the support of sociologists and psychologists who would exist willing to provide expert social science testimony that dovetailed with the conclusions of "the doll tests." Dr. Kenneth Clark provided testimony in the Briggs, Davis, and Delaware cases and co-authored a summary of the social science testimony delivered during the trials that were endorsed past 35 leading social scientists.

The Supreme Court cited Clark's 1950 paper in its Brown determination and best-selling it implicitly in the following passage: "To separate [African-American children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their condition in the customs that may bear upon their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." Dr. Kenneth Clark was dismayed that the courtroom failed to cite two other conclusions he had reached: that racism was an inherently American institution and that school segregation inhibited the development of white children, too.

An "Incorrigible Integrationist"

Although Dr. Kenneth Clark is about famous for the "Doll Tests," his personal achievements are equally as prestigious. He was the first African American to earn a PhD in psychology at Columbia; to agree a permanent professorship at the City College of New York; to join the New York State Board of Regents; and to serve as president of the American Psychological Association. His married woman Mamie Clark was the first African-American adult female and the second African-American, after Kenneth Clark, to receive a doctorate in psychology at Columbia.

 In 1946, the Clarks founded the Northside Eye for Kid Development in Harlem, where they conducted experiments on racial biases in didactics. During the '50s and '60s, the Clarks focused on New York Urban center schools.  Dr. Kenneth Clark was a noted authorisation on integration, and in particular, he and his married woman were closely involved in the integration efforts of New York City and New York State. Dr. Kenneth Clark said of Harlem that "children not only feel inferior but are inferior in academic achievement." He headed a Board of Education commission to ensure that the city's schools would exist integrated and to advocate for smaller classes, a more rigorous curriculum, and better facilities for the poorest schools.

The Clarks also created Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, or Haryou, in 1962 which was endorsed past then-Attorney Full general Robert F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson, whose administration earmarked $110 1000000 to finance the program. Haryou recruited educational experts to meliorate structure Harlem schools, provide resources and personnel for preschool programs and afterward-schoolhouse remedial educational activity, and reduce unemployment among blacks who had dropped out of schoolhouse. Dr. Clark was a staunch advocate of the total integration of American society — his peers described him as an "incorrigible integrationist."

Additional Resources

Explore the Landmark Example

Learn More than nigh Brown v. Board of Pedagogy

Meet the Legal Minds Behind Dark-brown v. Board of Teaching

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Source: https://www.naacpldf.org/ldf-celebrates-60th-anniversary-brown-v-board-education/significance-doll-test/

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