Doll test - The effects of racism on children (ENG)

The “doll test“ is a psychological experiment designed in the 1940s in the USA to test the degree of marginalization felt by African American children caused by prejudice, discrimination and racial segregation. Given the considerable increase of the phenomenon of migration in Europe in recent years we decided to re-create the test with Italian children. In fact, thousands of migrants land each year on the Mediterranean coast in search of a better future, some to improve their economic conditions, others are political refugees, fleeing from war zones, discrimination and sometimes ethnic, religious or political persecution. 2015 was considered the year of the ’invasion’ that threatened to wipe out social, economic and cultural balances in Europe. The increasingly close surveillance of borders and frontiers could determine, however, a risk to definitively annihilate any possibility of dialogue or integration. In every European country live many second, third and fourth generation migrants, who are now fully-fledged citizens of these nations, like these Italian children. Yet, for many, they remain ’different’, ’foreigners’, a dangerous definition that, in recent times, could be illegitimately paired with the phenomenon of terrorism. Without a serious political and social change in perspective, we risk dangerously distorting the perception we have of others, and the perception that others have of themselves. A production Video by Luca Iavarone and Raffaello Durso making of: