The notorious findings from the ‘doll test’

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In 2005 filmmaker Kirk Davis recreated a doll study and documented it in a film entitled ‘A Girl Like Me’. Despite the many changes in some parts of society, Davis found the same results as did the Drs. Clark in their study of the late 1930s and early 1940s. In the original experiment(s), the majority of the children choose the white dolls. When Davis repeated the experiment 15 out of 21 children also choose the white dolls over the black doll.

In an alternative interpretation of the Clark doll experiments, Robin Bernstein has recently argued that the children’s rejection of the black dolls could be understood not as victimization or an expression of internalized racism but instead as resistance against violent play involving black dolls, which was a common practice when the Clarks’ conducted their tests.

[Source: Kenneth and Mamie Clark Wikipedia link]