In or Out?

This week in Sociology we talked about "In" and "Out" groups. When we got to class we were supposed to sit with a group of people wearing blue jeans if we were wearing blue jeans, and if we weren't wearing blue jeans we had to sit at a different table. Each table had to come up with different ideas on why the one group was or wasn't wearing blue jeans. Some responses were that they didn't have clean jeans, they didn't like jeans, they thought jeans were nice looking, etc.. This experiment reflected one done by Jane Eliott. Jane was a third grade teacher and one day she decided that everyone in her class with blue or green eyes was better than the people with brown eyes weren't as good. The children with the blue or green eyes were able to go to lunch first and were able to have five extra minutes for recess. One child took his authority to the next level and started calling one boy "brown eyes" just for the day. This experiment showed that once someone gives you just a bit of the upper hand, you take advantage of it. In today's society we see it with people stero-typing others or thinking they are better because they have something that the other person doesn't have. Even at school we see it, the Freshman at school always assume the Seniors are going to "penny" them because they are the new kids at school. It has always been what Freshman hear and it rarely happens (I've heard of it happening once) but Freshman are terrified to come to school. If you aren't a Senior you aren't on the "in" group and you could be looked down on just like in Jane's experiment the brown-eyed children weren't allowed to do the same things as the others.