Contributions to Psychology

Abstract

Thecurrent paper shall examine the contributions of Mamie and Kenneth Clark who wrote many books on the psychological effect of racism on the life of a black American going to school. The psychological researchers reflected their past experiences as they faced segregation on the basis of race in the schools they studied. They tried to get equal rights for the black in education at the level of school for which ranged apart from researches and books also to court and leading to a civil rights movement. Their social work in providing psychological services to the black, poor and minority children was very important. The major contribution was that through their works, they made it evident that the root cause of the black youth being violent was because of the racism and segregation in the society that they had to face. Through their various works and journals, especially the Doll study, it was established that racial discrimination started affecting the black children since the age of three. These racial discriminations turned out to have a negative effect on the development of black children. Mamie's works were used in the Supreme Court decision of 1954. Their works came a long way in influencing the people about the need to end racial discrimination.

Contributions to Psychology

Introduction

Mamie, Philips Clark was born in 1917 in the Hot Spring city of Arkansas and died in 1983. Her father was a physician and her mother was a house wife but helped her husband in the medical practices. She led a very happy and a peaceful life. (Cherry, 2012) During her childhood, she faced the problem of racism, as black people were not accepted in America few years back. Later on she did her graduation from Harvard University and studied math as a major subject. From Harvard, she also did her masters in psychology. During her masters, she met with Kenneth B. Clark who she married later on. According to Bradley (2002) Kenneth B. Clark was a very prominent and influential leader who also urged his wife to do masters in psychology instead of Math and Physics. He was in 1914 in the Panama Canal Zone. He belonged to a well-established family as his father had a company and in order to provide his children best education his father sent Kenneth along with other siblings and mother to USA, New York. He like Mamie faced racism issues and later fought for the rights of the people. Despite facing racism problems he completed his education from Harvard University and in 1940 he became the first black American to graduate along with the doctorate degree from Columbia University. After getting married to Mamie her class fellow, he pursued his career as a psychologist teacher.

Discussion

The notable contributions of Mamie and Kenneth Clark were with regards to their study of the psychological effects that the black people felt on account of the racism that they had to suffer in schools (Clark & Clark, 1940, ...