For Jane Elliott, one of the most disturbing aspects of her lesson in discrimination was observing how her third-graders did inferior work on the day when they were made to feel like the "inferior" group, and yet consistently performed well on tests on the day when they were made the "superior" group.

In this interview, Claude Steele, a professor of social psychology at Stanford University, discusses what he and his colleagues call "stereotype threat." In their research they are testing the idea that students who belong to groups that have been negatively stereotyped are likely to perform less well in situations, such as standardized tests, in which they feel they are being evaluated through the lens of that stereotype. (Note: This interview is from FRONTLINE's 1999 report, "Secrets of the SAT.")

This September 2000 article on Jane Elliott from Horizon magazine conveys her feistiness and her passion when speaking out against racism and discrimination. The article also summarizes what Elliott has been doing since she retired from teaching.

Here's a recent glimpse of Jane Elliott and the kind of speeches she gives today on college campuses. This one, in October 2002, is at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.