Clarks doll experiment

A study was done in 1940 called the Clark Doll experiment was done in the 1940’s to test children’s views relative to race. They can two different groups, a black segregated primary school in Washington D.C and an integrated school in New York. The dolls were identical except of skin color one was brown with black curly hair and one was white with blonde hair. The children were then asked which one is the doll they would play with, which one is the nice doll, which one looks bad, which one has the nicer color, etc. The white doll was clearly preference in the integrated school among white and African American children, and was more acute in the segregated school. Then they were asked what doll they were and they answered to their respective race. 

In 2006 this experiment was recreated and some of the internalized discrimination was still evident. When this experiment was repeated the experiment 15 out of 21 children who were all black also choose the white dolls over the black, giving similar reasons as the original subjects, associating white with being beautiful and nice and black with ugly or bad. The dolls used in the documentary were identical except for skin color. This shows that that a lot of the discrimination was retained mentally, still feeling inferior to whites.