Evaluation of Jane Elliott’s “Blue-Eyed Brown-Eyes”

• Zohrah Miakheyl

Article 1

Critical Review

Stewart,l., Laduka,R., Bracht,C., Sweet, B and Gamarel,E.. (2003). Do the “Eyes” Have It? A Program Evaluation of Jane Elliott’s “Blue-EyedBrown-Eyes” DiversityTrainingExercise1.Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 33 (9), pp. 1898-1921.

Introduction

In this paper, I will discuss L.Stewart’s article ‘ Do the “Eyes” Have It? A Program Evaluation of Jane Elliott’s “Blue-EyedBrown-Eyes” DiversityTrainingExercise. Stewart’s article is about the effectiveness of Jane Elliot’s brown eyes/blue eyes exercise in reducing stereotyping in college students. In this paper a summary of the article will be given and its critic based on the objectivity, accurency, currency and its relevance.

Article summary

The purpose of this article is to assess the effectiveness of Jane Elliot’s Brown eyes/Blue eyes exercise. An experiment was done in which college students were divided according to their eye colour. Students with blue eyes were given discriminatory treatment, while the students with brown were given preferential treatment. Elliot wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). With this experiment she wanted to let the blue-eyed people (white people) feel how it is to be in low power position. According to the article is Jane Elliot’s experiment to small degree effective. After the exercise white college students in the exercise group were holding a much more positive attitude towards members of minority group than their peers did in comparison group. Nevertheless most white exercise participants found the experiment too distressing to recommend other people to participate to it. On the other hand they found that the exercise did help people becoming aware of racism.

Article critic

The topic covered is one which people nowadays not much people talk about it, because most people think that that we have reached a time where everybody is treated equal and fair and there is not much need to talk about it. This article is one of only a few article published assessing the effectiveness of Jane Elliot’s experiment. This might suggest that it has not been very relevant to people to assess Jane Elliot’s experiment. The majority of arguments and claims made by the author are supported by evidence from studies that they have undertaken and by references from prior researches. The article contains several in-text references which implies the great accuracy of the article. However the article is published in 2003, but the author has used sources from 1939 which is out-dated. The author has used formal language and has not used emotive language.

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According to the author is Jan Elliot’s experiment effective for exercise group than comparison group in reducing stereotyping in college students, but the sample size is too small to be assessed, only 30 college students were assessed. This small number of students cannot represent the whole population in the society. The experiment was not done with older people and children, while they are also part of the society and can also be the victim of racism. Because the experiment was biased to a minimum extend, it is therefore less objective. Students are selected in a group according to their eye color, because in author’s view are the people with blue the ones who are acting superior in the society, while the brown eyed people are treated as inferior. It is not genetically proved that there is link between eye color and the level of being racism. So, therefore is this maybe not the right variable to test with.

Conclusion

This review summarized and critically reviewed Stewarts article,’ Do the “Eyes” Have It? A Program Evaluation of Jane Elliott’s “Blue-EyedBrown-Eyes” DiversityTrainingExercise1’. This critical review has analysed the content of the article with the strengths and limitations of it and this is also criticized. This article has showed that Jane Elliot’s experiment was effective to a small extent, but the research is to a small degree biased as the sample size is small.

Word count (including headings): 613

Article 2

Critical Review

DiNicolantonio,J. (2014). The cardiometabolic consequences of replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates or Ω-6 polyunsaturated fats: Do the dietary guidelines have it wrong?.Open Heart. 1 (1), p1-4.

Introduction

This review critiques the article ‘The cardiometabolic consequences of replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates or Ω-6 polyunsaturated fats: Do the dietary guidelines have it wrong?’ in the journal of Open Heart. In this paper first the purpose of the article will be defined and it will be summarized. The critic of the article will be based on its relevance, accuracy, objectivity and its currency.

Article summary

The purpose of this article is to analyse whether diets low in saturated fat prevents heart disease and whether the dietary advice of replacing saturated fats with omega 6-rich polyunsaturated fats or carbohydrates should be reviewed. According to the article does diets low in saturated fat not curb in heart diseases or to live longer. The author argues that the studies of 1950s have incomplete data, because the dietary advice to eat omega 6 polyunsaturated fats or carbohydrates instead of saturated fat is flawed. Recent studies shows that risk of death from heart disease will increase when saturated fats is replaced with omega 6 fatty acids, without increase in intake of omega 3 fatty acids. According to the author should the dietary guidelines be urgently reviewed and he insists that scientists should stop overstating and demonising saturated fat, because any link with heart disease has not been fully supported by evidence. The author argues that best diet to prevent heart disease is one low in foods that are processed and low in refined carbs.

Article critic

The topic covered is controversial with the decades of dietary advice, because it actually may indicate that decades of dietary guidelines might be wrong. Over the last 50 years people have been told that saturated fat increases cholesterol and that it increases the risk for heart disease. Most people have been told that foods like red meat increases cholesterol level. This idea has been deeply brainwashed in people. This belief has been so firmly held in people’s cultural psyche that most people even question about it. Heart disease is the primary cause of the death in the United States and many people in other countries are affected by this disease and therefore is this topic relevant. This topic has received all the attention from many scientist in order to safe people’s life.

The author has used many in-text references, which shows the great accuracy of the article. This article is not the original piece of work on which the information is based on, because many sources from prior studies are used. Although the author has used some out-dated sources, most of the sources used are up to date and linked to high quality research studies. The research was carried out by scientists from Cardiovascular Research. The article is from a recent study which was accepted in January 2014 and published in March 2014 in Journal of Open Heart which verifies the accuracy of the article. This article is peer reviewed which confirms its precision. This article is easy to read and there is even a box with bullet points used to make readers understand what the main points of the article is.

Most of the claims and arguments made by the author are supported by scientific evidence. However, the author didn’t prove that saturated fat isn’t bad for the health of heart, because he claims that evidence of harm of it is statistically not significant.

Conclusion

DiNicolantonio, article’ the cardio metabolic consequences of replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates or Ω-6 polyunsaturated fats: Do the dietary guidelines have it wrong?’ is summarised and critically reviewed. The strengths and limitations of the article were analysed and criticized. The article has raised many questions on dietary guidelines of about two decades. Although the article lacks some scientific evidence regarding saturated fat, it is a well researched and an important recent source of research.

Word count (including headings): 657

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