C is for carrots, community gardens, and co-ops: A thematic analysis of the ways in which Sesame Street tackles nutrition, sustainability, and social justice

In the realm of entertainment education and media studies, there is a sizable amount of research linking children's nutrition and early educational television shows. However, there is a paucity of work that attempts to connect nutrition with sustainability and/or social justice in the context of children's educational television. The portrayal of these issues in the media is incredibly significant, especially in regards to children and their understanding of these complex topics, as it has the potential to serve as a catalyst for social change. Sesame Street is one of the most popular programs used to study the connection between nutrition and children's education, though it too fails to incorporate the other aspects of food, such as the role of food in maintaining cultural identity, as well as issues pertaining to sustainability and social justice. In my research, I have thematically analyzed the ways in which Sesame Street relays, or does not relay, important messages about nutrition, sustainability, and social justice to its viewers.

C IS FOR CARROTS, COMMUNITY GARDENS, AND CO-OPS: A THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE WAYS IN WHICH SESAME STREET TACKLES NUTRITION, SUSTAINABILITY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE by Erin Olschewski A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The University of Utah In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Degree in Bachelor of Arts In Department of Communication Approved: ______________________________ Masha Sukovic Thesis Faculty Supervisor _____________________________ Kent Ono Chair, Department of Communication _______________________________ Julia Corbett Honors Faculty Advisor _____________________________ Sylvia D. Torti, PhD Dean, Honors College December 2014 Copyright © 2014 All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT In the realm of entertainment education and media studies, there is a sizable amount of research linking children’s nutrition and early educational television shows. However, there is a paucity of work that attempts to connect nutrition with sustainability and/or social justice in the context of children’s educational television. The portrayal of these issues in the media is incredibly significant, especially in regards to children and their understanding of these complex topics, as it has the potential to serve as a catalyst for social change. Sesame Street is one of the most popular programs used to study the connection between nutrition and children’s education, though it too fails to incorporate the other aspects of food, such as the role of food in maintaining cultural identity, as well as issues pertaining to sustainability and social justice. In my research, I have thematically analyzed the ways in which Sesame Street relays, or does not relay, important messages about nutrition, sustainability, and social justice to its viewers. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 3 Entertainment Education Sesame Street Social Cognitive Theory Capacity Model 3 5 6 8 METHODS 9 RESULTS 11 Food in General Health & Nutrition Food & Culture Sustainability 12 13 17 19 DISCUSSION 20 Nutrition Social Justice Sustainability Suggestions for Sesame Street Limitations of the Study Recommendations for Future Research 21 23 26 26 29 30 REFERENCES 32 iii 1 INTRODUCTION Due to my interest in health and environmental communication in general and food studies specifically, I find myself particularly captivated by the area of research that combines children’s education and learning with media analyses. More specifically, I am passionate about how children’s learning is shaped by messaging of social issues and health in the media, or lack thereof. Through my personal experiences I have seen food connect various social issues as well as unite diverse disciplines. As an individual deeply invested in issues pertaining to food, both on a deeply personal as well as academic and professional levels, I believe it is of utmost importance for children’s educational television shows to utilize food as an educational tool to communicate culturally appropriate health content and social issues, in addition to integrating the topics in a way that empowers children to see the big picture. I chose to focus my study on the topics of nutrition, sustainability, and social justice in particular for a few reasons. Fundamentally, the communication of these areas to diverse audiences is critical due to the following three simple truths: we must eat to survive; if we want to continue to eat we need to incorporate principles of sustainability into our lives; and if we want everyone to have equitable access to this source of sustenance, we need to educate ourselves and future generations about social justice, because without it entire communities, and even nations, will continue to have structural, procedural, and distributive barriers to food. Furthermore, the manner in which issues pertaining to food, health, sustainability, and social justice are either communicated or ignored in the media is incredibly significant, especially in regards to children and their understanding of these topics. 2 My rationale for choosing Sesame Street as the text for analysis is partially based on the findings of Sukovic’s dissertation study (2014) focusing on mothers’ perceptions of their role and responsibility for providing healthy nutrition to their children. According to the results of the study, Sesame Street is the most frequently viewed and referenced children’s program focusing on healthy eating habits and choices among the study participants, most of whom directly addressed it in their narratives. Moreover, the release of the USDA MyPlate guidelines in 2011, Sesame Street has had an increased focus on nutrition and healthy eating, as the MyPlate guidelines significantly altered the national nutritional guidelines from the previous MyPyramid guidelines, which effectively ended the 19 year long era of food pyramid diagrams. Having in mind the growing attention placed on environmental and risk communication, and the importance of understanding different aspects of healthy nutrition, sustainability, and social justice, I saw this as an opportune time to research the ways in which Sesame Street communicates important messages about these pertinent topics to its viewers, the children. I was profoundly interested as to whether the successes with literacy and numeracy achieved by Sesame Street (Fisch et al., 1999) extend to social issues, and whether the show integrates health education, particularly nutrition, with topics of sustainability and social justice, which tend to be largely neglected both in the school curricula and children’s programming. This curiosity led me to the formation of my primary research questions (RQs) motivating the current study, which are: 3 RQ1: Does Sesame Street’s success with cognitive improvements in regards to literacy and numeracy extend to social issues like sustainability and social justice, and if so, in what ways? RQ2: How does Sesame Street approach nutrition and does it incorporate cultural diversity and holistic health? RQ3: How, if at all, does Sesame Street integrate these topics together and into the sketches1? In order to better understand the context in which these questions arise from, I conducted an extensive literature review focusing on Entertainment Education; Sesame Street context and success; and two theoretical approaches driving my research, namely social cognitive theory and the capacity model. LITERATURE REVIEW Entertainment Education As any casual observer can attest, many relevant health concerns and social issues are frequently addressed in the entertainment media, such as television, radio, and print. A number of studies show that media have a great deal of influence on the audiences and their perceptions of these issues (e.g., Brodie et al, 2001; Byrd-Bredbenner et al, 2003; Hether et al, 2008). For instance, a majority of viewers (52%) picks up health information from prime time TV shows, and 1 in 4 say these shows are among their top three sources for health information (Kaiser, 2004). Moreover, entertainment media can play an important role in educating the general public about social issues and even instigate positive social change (Klein, 2013; Singhal et al, 2006; Papa et at, 2000; Brown 1 A brief scene or story within an episode; commonly used in children’s television shows 4 & Singhal, 1999). One of the most effective ways to share pro-social and health-related messages with larger audiences is to utilize media content specifically designed to both entertain and educate. This approach is typically referred to as Entertainment Education (EE) or edutainment. EE involves incorporating an educational message into popular entertainment content to raise awareness, increase knowledge, create favorable attitudes, and motivate people to take socially responsible action in their lives. Essentially, EE is: The use of entertainment as a communication practice crafted to strategically communicate about development issues in a manner and with a purpose that can range from the more narrowly defined social marketing of individual behaviour to the liberating and citizen-driven articulation of social change agendas” (Tufte, 2005, p.162). EE can make an impact through affecting an individual’s “awareness, attitudes, and behavior” as well as influencing the environment in which an individual can enact social change (Singhal et al., 2004, p. 5). In fact, EE interventions have been successfully used in many countries, including the US, to do so about a number of health and social issues, including substance abuse, immunization, teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, cancer, obesity concerns, etc. (Shen & Han, 2014). Though EE is not specific to children, there is an overwhelming amount of media targeted towards children and adolescents. In addition to the numerous developmental reasons for targeting children with goals of literacy, numeracy, and social awareness, it is important to note that many lifelong habits are created during the childhood years. As Bandura (2004) asserts, “It is easier to prevent wasteful [or detrimental] practices than to try to change them after they have become deeply entrenched as part of a lifestyle” (p. 5 95). For that reason, many EE programs, like Sesame Street, have been making certain aspects of health and social issues increasingly central to their content. Sesame Street Sesame Street, an American children’s television series created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett more than 45 years ago, is one of the TV programs with the most educational impact in history. Fisch (2004) asserts, “No educational television series has had a greater impact—either on the research literature, on the production of educational television, or on children—than Sesame Street” (p. 15). Sesame Street has focused on different cognitive and educational goals over the years, introducing into children’s television the topics of love, marriage, and childbirth; safety and real-life disasters, such as terrorist attacks; issues pertaining to tolerance, diversity, inclusion, and disability; as well as, more recently, an initiative to establish healthy habits that can last a lifetime (Davis, 2008). By 1999 Sesame Street had certainly become the most heavily researched series in the history of television. More than 1,000 studies* have examined Sesame Street and its impact in areas such as literacy, number skills, and promoting social messages as well as its formal features as they pertain to such issues as children’s attention. (Fisch et al., 1999, p. 166) * The number of studies has increased significantly since 1999. The research on Sesame Street touts some impressive statistics, including that on average, children who watched Sesame Street have 16% higher high school grade point averages, 67% of Bangladeshi 4-year olds who watch Sesame Street have higher literacy rates than those who do not, and that using “Word on the Street” has increased children’s vocabulary by 78% (Literacy & Numeracy). Surprisingly, “These effects held across age, sex, geographic location, socioeconomic status (SES) (with low SES children 6 showing greater gains than middle SES children), native language (English or Spanish), and whether the children watched at home or in school” (Bryant and Oliver, 2009, p. 403). Now that I have established that there are extensive studies done about children’s learning from entertainment education and Sesame Street in particular, let’s focus on how they learn. In the following section, I discuss the theoretical mechanisms that allow for educational television shows like Sesame Street to be so successful in improving literacy and numeracy for young children. I also briefly delineate how social cognitive theory and the capacity model are utilized in this thesis as frameworks for understanding how to enhance children’s learning of health and social issues through the venue of Entertainment Education. Theoretical Approach Social Cognitive Theory Social cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of “an observer's ability to perform a particular behavior and the confidence the individual has in performing the behavior” (Miller, 2002, p. 241). This confidence in certain behaviors, or lack thereof, is widely known as self-efficacy and is viewed as a necessary prerequisite for behavioral change. That being said, Dutta (2008) points out that self-efficacy alone cannot account for all aspects of modeled social learning as it does not, explicitly, take into consideration external societal and systemic structures: Self-efficacy is an integral element of the structure that surrounds the individual. By treating self-efficacy as an audience-orientation variable (read psychological variable, a thing of the mind) without taking into account the actual resources of the environment, the proponents of self- 7 efficacy run the risk of losing the pivotal structural context in developing an appropriate understanding of the culture. (Dutta, 2008, p. 30) Essentially, Dutta (2008) contends that focusing solely on the outcomes of self-efficacy does not present a comprehensive view of what is taking place. It is important to take note of various structural components, whether inhibitors or facilitators, to social change. The concept of collective efficacy then enters the scene in order to account for these external variables. Collective efficacy supplements self-efficacy by explaining that the strength of nations, social institutions, communities, and families lies partially in “people's sense of collective efficacy that they can solve the problems they face and improve their lives through unified effort.” In fact, Bandura (2004) explains that “People's shared belief in their collective power to realize the futures they seek is a key ingredient of collective agency" (p. 80). It is through a combination of strong senses of self and collective efficacy that resilience, learning, and change occurs. Those who have little confidence in their personal efficacy may perceive situational or structural obstacles to be insurmountable, while those who have stronger attitudes about their self-efficacy to change themselves and their behavior is more likely to influence the perceived efficacy of someone in their community. Assurance of one’s own ability to make a difference largely enables others, which leads to a stronger sense of collective efficacy. This process is incredibly important in regards to children and their formation of healthy, socially just habits. For example, if a child never saw an example of someone, in this case a character on Sesame Street, prepare a healthy meal with fruits and vegetables, it is likely that no social learning would occur and their perceived self-efficacy would be low. Moreover, while seeing dancing broccoli muppets may be entertaining for the child, unless he or she 8 saw a trusted character demonstrate how to prepare broccoli, the child would most likely not have the level of self-efficacy necessary to make their own healthy snack. Capacity Model Supplementary to social cognitive theory is the capacity model. The capacity model focuses on the challenges of memory for success with entertainment education programs, particularly educational television shows. The capacity model centers on the particular challenges that stem from the fact that “educational television programs typically present narrative content and educational content simultaneously” (Bryant and Oliver, 2009, p. 423). Another important aspect of the capacity model is the idea of distance, or “the degree to which the educational content is integral or tangential to the narrative” (Bryant and Oliver, 2009, p. 423). If a character stops in the middle of the sketch to give a lesson in math equations and it is irrelevant to the storyline, the distance is great. On the other hand, if that character stops to give a particular math equation that is essential to solving whatever problem he or she is currently faced with, the distance is small. Oliver (2009) delineates this concept in more detail: According to the capacity model, if distance is large, the mental resources needed for comprehension are generally devoted primarily to the narrative; less resources are available for processing the educational content. However, if the educational content is integral to the narrative, then the two complement, rather than compete with, each other; the same processing that permits comprehension of the narrative simultaneously contributes to the comprehension of the educational content. (p. 425) It can be said that Sesame Street successfully utilizes small distance to effectively weave together narrative and educational content, constructing a solid venue for children to learn about core subjects like English and math, creating an opportunity to also teach children about health and social issues. By using the Children’s Television Workshop 9 (CTW) model of combining the expertise of researchers and child educators, I believe that Sesame Street could, and should, strengthen children’s self and collective efficacy about how to take care of themselves, each other, and the planet. To investigate my research questions as outlined in my introduction, I utilized the information gathered through my literature review to shape my research methods, which are as follows. METHODS In order to understand how Sesame Street has, or has not, been communicating information about nutrition, sustainability, and social justice, and whether it addresses these important topics at all, I conducted a thematic analysis of Seasons 36, 42, and 43 of Sesame Street - a total of 36 episodes. I specifically focused on these particular seasons because I wished to analyze the episodes filmed and aired after the USDA MyPlate guidelines officially replaced the MyPyramid guidelines: namely the Seasons 42 and 43. It was necessary to include an additional season to compare across time, which is why I chose to also view Season 36. Preliminary research implied that this season has a focus on nutrition, as evidenced by the Healthy Habits for Life initiative that debuted just before the season’s release, and would therefore give me more content to compare with the two later seasons (“Healthy Habits for Life”). The study looked into episodes that were broadcast on television, though the reach of Sesame Street through online programming and resource kits is more expansive. Despite this, due to a few simple factors, such as the digital divide – the divergence of those with access to information and those without (Norris, 2001), I wanted to center my 10 attention on where the vast majority of viewers receive their information: the broadcast television series itself. I watched all 36 of the hour-long episodes thoroughly, initially searching for any message focusing on nutrition, sustainability, or social justice while using a thematic analysis approach. A thematic analysis is a “process for encoding qualitative information,” a research procedure that suited my intent well (Boyatzis, 1998). Before beginning the analysis I was hoping to find rather explicit messages within sketches that focused on sustainability, social justice, and/or holistic nutrition. I was also expecting to see a fairly significant differentiation in nutritional and health messages between seasons 36 and 42, assuming that the end of the MyPyramid guidelines and the introduction of the MyPlate guidelines would inform a notable shift in Sesame Street’s content. However, after watching two episodes from different seasons as a pilot, it became clear that it would benefit my study to expand my scope and slightly reframe my coding pursuit for content that fell into one of the following four categories: 1. Food in general a. Food being used in any way as an educational tool i. e.g., C is for Carrots; how many carrots are there are in this particular scene? 2. Food and culture a. Implicit or explicit references to social justice or equity i. e.g., video montage of children from different ethnic backgrounds singing together about what makes them different, including physical characteristics and interests 11 3. Sustainability a. References to agriculture, biology, or resource management i. e.g., mention of recycling of pop cans 4. Health and nutrition a. Explicit sketches of fruits, vegetables, health, healthy eating, etc. i. e.g., listing things that need fuel, talking about how humans need fuel to run, our fuel is food I adjusted my search to look for these categories, as opposed to straightforward discussion of sustainability, social justice, and nutrition, in hopes of picking up broader messages as well as better incorporate the messages I identified in the episodes I analyzed in my study. RESULTS Food in general constituted the highest percentage of total occurrences, making up nearly half of the messages coded at 47%; health and nutrition represented the next largest chunk of occurrences with 27%; the next largest category was food and culture amounting to 19% of the messages; and finally, the smallest category by far was sustainability with only 8% of the total mentions. In fact, out of 36 hours of video there were only three occurrences of sustainability-related content and two out of the three messages were the same sketch: a brief guilt-inducing discussion about recycling. For a visual representation of these results, please see Figure 1. In order to most effectively expound the aforementioned results, I will delve into each of the four coding categories: 12 food in general, health and nutrition, food and culture, and sustainability in the order of their respective results. Percentage of total occurrences 27% 46% 8% Food in general Food & culture Sustainability Health & nutrition 19% Figure 1: Thematic Coding Results Food in General The results of the messages that fell into the coding category “Food in general” constituted the largest portion of the total occurrences significantly. Through this, it is clear that food is primarily being used to illustrate numbers and letters in a way that helps children identify new educational content with objects they perhaps recognize most – food. Please see Figure 2 for a screenshot of an example of the abundant sketches that use an animated character introducing the Letter of the Day with a dancing food item, which in this case is Cookie Monster announcing that “A is for Apple.” 13 Figure 2: Season 42, Episode 6 That being said, it is entirely possible that many viewers of Sesame Street actually may not even recognize some of the food items that are being used to demonstrate various letters and numbers. Many low income families subsist primarily on processed and fast food products, especially when it comes to low SES people of color (Freeman, 2007). In that regard perhaps learning outcomes may be more effective if the sketch used dancing French fries instead of eggplants. Unfortunate as it may be, those who live in food deserts or who have their food budgets supplemented by government assistance are much more likely to make the connection between “I is for Instant Mashed Potatoes” than “A is for Apples.” Essentially the potential disconnect between the goal of these basic educational sketches in using food items to help children learn new content and the impact is great. Health & Nutrition In 2004, Sesame Street launched the “Healthy Habits for Life” initiative to combat childhood obesity through education (Healthy Habits). The campaign began with the airing of Season 36, a season that focused on teaching children about healthy nutrition, mostly through an emphasis on fruits and vegetables. One of the shifts that 14 occurred in Season 36 was the surprisingly controversial sketch where Cookie Monster was declared to be the “Veggie Monster” by Mario Lopez, acting as a television journalist for “Extra - Sesame Street” (See Figure 3). Figure 3: Season 36, Episode 2 In this sketch, which is broken up into a few pieces throughout Episode 2 of Season 36, Lopez finds Cookie Monster eating vegetables while waiting for Chris, a Sesame Street regular, to finish baking chocolate chip cookies. He then announces in a live TV journalism style that Cookie Monster is now the Veggie Monster, of which Cookie Monster protests to no avail. Throughout the episode Lopez repeatedly finds Cookie Monster eating various vegetables, despite his attempts to hide from the reporter. Cookie Monster desperately tries to explain that he loves cookies and vegetables, but Lopez clearly is not listening. In the end, Lopez and the rest of the characters finally respond to Cookie Monster’s pleas and acknowledge that he is still the Cookie Monster and that it is okay that he also likes vegetables. Another sketch in Season 36 is “Healthy Food Showdown” in which various food items oppose a carton of milk in order to find out which product is heavier. See Figure 4 for a screenshot of milk preparing to battle an apple on the scale. 15 Figure 4: Season 42, Episode 12 Contrary to the title and messaging of the sketch, the content has absolutely nothing to do with nutrition or health. The only food that is victorious over milk is a watermelon, whereas both the apple and pineapple are defeated by the confident carton of milk. The inconsistent messaging of “healthy” and “heavy” in the sketch are misleading and it is likely that children will misunderstand milk’s victories to mean that somehow a carton of milk is more nutrient-dense than an apple, when that is not the case. One of the most problematic nutrition-related sketches identified through my study was also in Season 36, Episode 2. In this vignette that takes place in “Elmo’s World” an apple knocks on the door and introduces herself; she describes to Elmo that she is a red fruit and that she has a stem, core, etc. While she tells Elmo about herself a pizza, peanut butter sandwich, broccoli, and piece of corn come in. See Figure 5 for an image of these muppet foods. 16 Figure 5: Season 36, Episode 2 Once they have all entered the screen, the apple allows them to introduce themselves as the various food items that they are and says, “Not only do these taste good, but they’re good for you!” The bizarre reference to pizza, as a health food is both shocking and disconcerting. It is particularly problematic that in a season with clear goals of reducing the childhood obesity rates in America, Sesame Street would declare a piece of greasy, pepperoni-laden pizza a health food. After this, Elmo asks the apple where one could get these foods, to which she responds: “A pizza from a pizza parlor, apples from an apple tree, or the supermarket – where they have everything!” Elmo responds enthusiastically and then shows a home movie that he made about his breakfast. In this video he tells the viewers that he has apple juice, milk, Cheerios, and white toast, a meal that could have been taken directly from a cereal commercial. Overall, I found these sketches, though attempting to educate children about healthy nutrition, very problematic. Not only do many of the sketches have inconsistent communication about what is healthy and what is not, but they also leave the viewer feeling confused about exactly where and how to get this “healthy” food. 17 Food and culture While the “Healthy Habits for Life” initiative did not have explicit emphases on cultural diversity, Sesame Street was in fact created with the goal of bridging educational gaps between races (Fisch, 1999). In the 45 years that Sesame Street has been on the air, the producers have consistently attempted to make the show accessible to various races and ethnicities through character representation, introducing new characters like Alan, the most recent proprietor of “Hooper’s Store” and an Asian-American. In addition to representing various races through characters, Sesame Street has also introduced a few racially diverse muppets, such as Rosita, a Latin American girl. Sesame Street has increasingly tried to be culturally diverse, offering sketches like the one pictured in Figure 6, which took place in Season 36. This particular sketch features “The girl who loved to eat and try new foods,” and who traveled all over the world to do just that. She flies to Italy to eat linguini; to India to eat spicy, veggie curry; to Japan to eat Udon noodles with chopsticks; and finally to Brooklyn to eat a peanut butter sandwich and milk. As pictured in the screenshot in Figure 6, the family in Brooklyn is racially-ambiguous and has just a couple of sandwiches for the whole family to share. 18 Figure 6: Season 36, Episode 2 I find this sketch to be problematic for a couple of reasons. First, it gives the impression that the white, presumably American girl has no culture of her own and that culture is something that only racial/ethnic oriented. The fact that the young girl travels to these countries to eat culturally traditional foods only to end in Brooklyn with peanut butter sandwiches, which is pretty clearly not a traditional meal, is similarly disconcerting. This enforces the concept of acculturation, which is essentially the process through which an individual or group adopts traits, habits, or characteristics of a different cultural group, usually in regards to immigrants (Dutta, 2008). While acculturation is not always problematic, it is in this sketch because it strips the African American family of their food traditions in addition to encouraging that the family is of low SES status without acknowledging any structural reasons why that may be the case. Furthermore, although Sesame Street has focused on the inclusion and representation of diverse races and ethnicities, my findings demonstrated that the sketches were not without flaws. Opportunities to talk about social inequities, particularly through food, such as in the aforementioned sketch, are not being taken advantage of, and this is detrimental to the social learning of children of diverse backgrounds. 19 Sustainability The last, and least, section of my findings is messages about sustainability. Though I tried to expand my coding criteria to encompass a broad spectrum of content, there were still only three occurrences of sustainability-related sketches in the 36 hours of video that my study included. As I mentioned, two of the three occurrences were of the same sketch, which is pictured in Figure 7. Figure 7: Season 42, Episode 7 This sketch takes place in “Abby’s Flying Fairy School” – an addition to the show’s regular segments in 2009 with Season 40. In the sketch, Mrs. Sparklenose tells the students briefly about recycling, though her definition is not entirely accurate. In fact, her portrayal of recycling is much more akin to “upcycling,” or the reuse of something old into something new at an individual level, than recycling, which is the conversion of what would ordinarily be waste into reusable material through a cyclic process. The vignette does not focus on recycling, despite the initial introduction, and rather utilizes the idea of do-it-yourself (DIY) upcycling to save the day when a grouchy genie wants to transform his jar into a fancier one. 20 DISCUSSION As I discussed earlier, Sesame Street’s impressive statistics in regards to improvements in literacy and numeracy across the world can be contributed largely to its effective use of elements of the capacity model, such as small distance in educational sketches. As Sesame Street characters are consistently rated as the top favorite media characters with preschool-aged children (Kotler, Schiffman, & Hanson, 2012), it could be said that the opportunity for education about health and social issues is perhaps the greatest of all in children’s educational television. Because of the importance that social cognitive theory places on favored role models for learning, the existing preference for Sesame Street characters has already given the show an edge on strengthening children’s self-efficacy and therefore creating social change. However, while Sesame Street may be affecting change in certain academic and pro-social aspects, it is clear that Sesame Street is not fully taking advantage of the opportunities Entertainment Education offers for social learning. The lack of quality, culturally-appropriate nutrition messages; the inadequacy of social justice content; and the sheer absence of sustainability-related discussions all demonstrate lost potential for shaping and enacting social change. I will now delve deeper into each topic area in order to interpret the results of my research through the lens of social cognitive theory; I have organized the following sections by themes of nutrition, social justice, and sustainability to represent the topics that guided this research. 21 Nutrition Although Sesame Street has tried to emphasize children’s nutrition through the Healthy Habits for Life Initiative, particularly in Season 36, there are pieces being left out of the dialogue. For instance, Kellogg, a multimillion dollar food giant partnered with Sesame Street (Kerwin, 1998). As Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) vice president said, in regards to the partnership: “Kellogg is looking to create media for parents with young kids, including information on nutrition, activities to raise smarter kids, anything that is part of raising healthy kids.” This partnership, while well intentioned, is problematic for a number of reasons. First, Kellogg’s nutrition curriculum focuses primarily on the importance of low fat content, not sugar, when selecting breakfast foods, probably because most of the company’s cereals are laden with sugar. In fact, Froot Loops, one of Kellogg’s most popular children’s breakfast cereals, has more than 12 grams of sugar in a one ounce serving (and most children typically consume far more cereal than that), while Honey Smacks, another cereal, weighs in at nearly 56% sugar by weight (Pestano et al., 2011). It is clear that when comparing the nutritional content of Kellogg’s most popular cereals with the USDA nutrition guidelines that the numbers just do not match. It has been proven that partially hydrogenated corn syrup, a trans-fat and the second ingredient in most Kellogg cereals, raises bad cholesterol while drastically increasing risk of developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes (American Heart Association, 2014). As I discussed earlier, there are a few sketches in Season 36 that show Elmo’s usual breakfast: cereal, white toast, and orange juice – a combination that is often pictured in breakfast cereal advertisements. As influential as Sesame Street is, it should not be partnering 22 companies, like Kellogg, that support such a limited understanding of healthy food choices for children. When children see Elmo regularly consuming breakfast cereals and talking about how it is a part of a healthy breakfast, it enables them to choose similar, sugar-laden foods, as opposed to a nutrient-dense breakfast of fruit and whole grains that the USDA, and the Healthy Habits for Life Initiative, would advise. Social cognitive theory asserts that the modeling of a certain behavior leads to observational learning and the belief that the behavior is desirable. In this case, the behavior that is portrayed as desirable actively negates the nutritional recommendations, of which Sesame Street’s Healthy Habits for Life initiative is largely shaped by. Also, many corporations like Kellogg focus solely on self-regulation, or individual behavior choices, as being the solution to the childhood obesity epidemic, but clearly that’s not working (Linn and Novosat, 2008, p. 150). This is an incredibly essentialized and individualistic perspective on an issue that is largely impacted by structural systems and policies. Emphasizing the importance of making “healthy” choices disregards the procedural injustices that lead to the oppression of people of color and low SES populations through food (Freeman, 2007), and that is not even broaching the hypocrisy of the advice. Furthermore, corporate food sponsorships, like that with Kellogg, are problematic because as corporate funds intensify, so too does the power that and influence corporations have on television, and worse, children’s understanding of health and nutrition (Paradise, 2005, p. 35). That being said, there are also some positive aspects of Sesame Street’s communication of nutrition information. One example of a successful use of the principles of social cognitive theory is the well-known sketch from Season 36 in which 23 Cookie Monster is announced to be the Veggie Monster by a television reporter, Cookie Monster repeatedly says that he is still Cookie Monster, but that he also likes vegetables. This seemingly simple aspect of the story is actually very important in regards to children’s learning of nutrition and the start of small attitude shifts. Not only is the sketch effective in terms of entertainment value, it demonstrates to children that they do not need to change their identities, or make significant changes, in order to incorporate vegetables into their diet. Seeing Cookie Monster, a timeless and popular character, eat celery sticks just like he would chocolate chip cookies is beneficial in terms of increasing their self-efficacy. In fact, by children seeing that the Cookie Monster can shift to including healthy eating habits and therefore expanding the likelihood that the sketch will lead to behavior change, when given the opportunity. Social Justice I stress the value of integrating content about social issues into EE media in my introduction, emphasizing the opportunities for children’s social learning of global issues, like social inequities and sustainability, in addition to healthy nutrition in Sesame Street. Through effective use of self and collective efficacy, television programs that connect these issues are able to "strengthen and sustain commitment to an issue that extends beyond specific fictional characters” (Singhal et al., 2004, p. 50). Bandura (2004) asserts that there are five essential elements for doing so, including: “on-site familiarity with the intended audiences, their prevailing health practices, their rationale for these practices, and incentives or barriers to change” and “cultural sensitivity to the social norms that underlie specific behaviors” (p. 52). 24 Although Sesame Street seems to address most of the other elements, like producing “first-rate entertainment that engages that audience and reflects audience interests” (p. 52), there is still much room for improvement in the realm of social and cultural communication in the content. Additionally, Bandura (2004) says: Efforts at change must address sociocultural norms and practices at the social system level. Because of the centrality of perceived efficacy in people's lives, media programs help to raise people's beliefs that they can have a hand in bringing about change in their lives” (p. 81). Creating a dialogue around sociocultural norms and systemic structures through Entertainment Education venues is incredibly effective, especially when the viewers are largely members of a population that is oppressed by said structures, as they are with Sesame Street. As stated earlier, Sesame Street was created to bridge the educational gap between affluent white children and marginalized populations, like African American children, the show has consistently concentrated on representing diverse populations through the human characters. Representation is instrumental in the impact of social learning, as children who see trusted role models with their same, or similar, traits and characteristics are more likely to repeat that behavior when given the opportunity. However, representation of diverse populations is only a small piece of integrating social justice content into Sesame Street’s episodes and unfortunately, can be done in ways that have negative consequences. For instance, representing various races without embracing cultural diversity is problematic because it encourages a color blind approach. Though it may seem best to present an idealized fantasy of absolute equality in children’s television programs, it is 25 essential for children to begin to understand the social structures that reinforce inequity in order for them to build collective efficacy and create change. Social structures embody “rules, resources, and social sanctions designed to organize, guide, and regulate human affairs” (Bandura, 2004, p. 76). It also important to understand that these systems are “created, implemented, and altered by human activity" (p. 76). Therefore, it is valuable for children of all races to understand that certain populations are marginalized through social structures in order for to empower them to create social change through justice. While Sesame Street is well-intentioned in its attempts to avoid perpetuating racism, the content of many of the sketches, such as the “The Girl Who Likes to Eat and Try New Foods,” does not avoid communicating behaviors of segregation, nor does it fully embrace cultural diversity. Moreover, it is crucial for social justice content*, in addition to cultural representation, to be offered through Entertainment Education venues like Sesame Street to best aid children’s learning and influence their ability to institute social change. * When, more concretely, we attack some policy or some status of affairs as socially unjust, we are claiming that a person, or usually a category of persons, enjoys fewer advantages than that person or group of persons ought to enjoy (or bears more of the burdens than they ought to bear), given how other members of the society in question are faring. (Miller, 1999, p. 1) Relatedly, it is important to note that social justice and environmental sustainability are inextricably linked; cultural injustices and environmental degradation most often come as a pair. Furthermore, it can be said that the communication of social justice content, particularly through agriculture, for children can be used as a logical stepping stone to addressing sustainability education. 26 Sustainability Food connects health, justice, and environment in a way that is accessible to all people. Despite this, the findings of my study demonstrate that Sesame Street is not using the presence of food in their sketches to communicate issues of environmental sustainability. In fact, 2/3 of the content in all 36 hours of video was a reference to recycling, not at all utilizing the sketches about nutrition and food to talk about where the food came from or how it got there. However, if Elmo, or any character on Sesame Street, were to act as a positive role model for sustainability-related behaviors, such as prioritizing eating organic or local foods, social cognitive theory dictates that children would be more likely to exhibit those same behaviors. In the very least, including sustainability education into existing sketches would start a conversation and over time build collective efficacy of creating change through environmental sustainability. As Bandura (2004) says, people “need to be informed of the ecological costs of their consummatory practices and enabled and motivated to turn enlightened concern into constructive courses of action,” in which the first step is educating the next generation ( p. 95). Suggestions for Sesame Street As I have addressed, it is essential for children’s learning to focus on social issues in addition to health and academic education. Social justice, environmental sustainability, and culturally appropriate nutrition are topics that act as key venues for addressing all of these educational goals. As all three topics are encompassed in food, something that is relevant and essential for everyone, it only makes sense for Sesame Street to utilize food to communicate these issues and expand the impact of social learning. By utilizing the 27 capacity model’s emphasis on small distance between narrative and educational content, in addition to presenting the same educational content in different narrative contexts, Sesame Street could have great success with children learning how to connect content regarding socially just, healthy and sustainable behaviors with real life situations (Bryant and Oliver, 2009, p. 426). For example, Elmo could garden in a sketch and incorporate educational content with low distance about how gardening is beneficial for a number of reasons, including that it produces food for very cheap, that it allows you to eat healthier whole foods, and that when you do it without chemicals it is good for the earth. Elmo could frame this in a simple, positive way that incorporates various other educational pieces into the gardening sketch, including how it can be helpful to grow your own food when you live in a food desert, or if you are hungry, in addition to what those really mean. If Elmo were to have a garden and the children could see that this was beneficial for him and his friends and family, social cognitive theory suggests that the children would be more likely to talk to their parents about the potential of having a small garden, or at least understand the benefits of growing one’s own food. Similarly, by including short segments of children from different cultural backgrounds talking about one of their favorite dishes and how they can make small substitutions to make it a healthier, children viewing Sesame Street would be able to see someone from their culture represented as well as straightforward examples of how to make small, culturally appropriate shifts towards a healthier lifestyle. Social cognitive theory explains that representation of similar traits, characteristics, cultural backgrounds, etc. are an important piece of increasing social learning. Using real children who 28 represent various social, cultural and ethnic groups, in addition to trusted Sesame Street characters, to communicate these pieces of information greatly increases the likelihood that viewers would change their behaviors. In regards to sustainability attitude and behavior shifts in a venue other than food, various Sesame Street characters could include messaging about waste and how to reduce one’s own waste, using food waste as an easily recognizable starting point. One idea for a sketch that suits the show’s current character profiles is for Oscar to be grumpy, as usual, about people putting things that could be recycled in the trash can he lives in. He could get upset about how people should put cans into the recycling bin, not his trash can, while ranting about how he loves trash but only when it is sorted. Because this sketch works well within Oscar’s usual behavior, the distance between the entertainment and educational aspects of the sketch would be quite low. For this reason, the children viewing the sketch would be more likely to recycle a can instead of throwing it into the trash next time they were given the option. Repeating these elements multiple times increases the likelihood that a child will exhibit similar behavior when placed in a similar situation. Furthermore, these are simply a few suggestions for how to integrate sustainability, social justice, and culturally appropriate nutrition educational content into the existing sketch framework. The possibilities for creating intentional, well-researched messaging in Sesame Street are nearly endless. Though these suggestions represent the topics that I have focused on in my study, it is important to note that they, and my work, are not without their limitations. Because of this, I would like to briefly discuss some of 29 the limitations of my research, as well as how they can be used to inform future research opportunities. Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research This section discusses the overall limitations of the current research, including limitations in the research design and methods of data analysis, as well as recommendations for future research. Furthermore, it should be noted that while suggestions for future research are mentioned in the previous sections of this thesis, the bulk of the suggestions are presented in this section. Limitations of the Study First, my study focused on environmental sustainability, nutrition, and social justice in the broadest sense. Due to the lack of time and given the limited scope of an Honors Thesis, I chose not to delve into specific issues within those topic areas, such as gender equity or sexual orientation within justice; renewable energy or water conservation within sustainability; or macronutrients within nutrition. Also, my study focused solely on the broadcast television episodes, which does not include internet content or resource kits provided by Sesame Workshop. As stated earlier, I chose to focus on the broadcast television series largely because of the digital divide as I wanted to know what was being communicated to the largest group of people. Similarly, the analysis of only three seasons out of more than 43 could potentially impact the quality and generalizability of results found. Finally, my research didn’t include the views and perceptions of actual viewers of Sesame Street, which would provide additional insight into the issues being examined in this study. 30 That being said, the limitations of my work are great opportunities for expansion of this research, some of which are addressed in the following section. Recommendations for Future Research Doing a more comprehensive analysis of the content communicated in Sesame Street would be very beneficial, both to communication scholars and to those focusing on other areas of interest. For instance, how does the messaging of recycling content differ from that of sustainable agriculture throughout Sesame Street’s tenure? Are particular topics within social issue areas focused on more than others? In addition to this more comprehensive, detailed look into the communication of sustainability, social justice, and nutrition in Sesame Street, I would be interested to see a cross comparison and a thematic examination of other children’s educational television shows. Finally, my last recommendation for future research is to expand upon my study with the addition of inperson interviews, focus groups, and other ways of exploring the reactions of both children and caregivers to these messages. How do children who view Sesame Street influence their families’ habits? How do the principles of social cognitive theory relate to familial interactions in regards to healthy, sustainable, and just food choices? These are just a couple potential questions that could guide future research; the potential impact of such studies would be great. I am particularly interested in seeing the latter research questions be asked through a combination of media-based thematic analysis and participatory observation. It is important to ask the question, “Who are the agents of change and where do they get their information?” According to Sukovic’s (2014) research about mother’s perceptions of their role in children’s nutrition, children are often the ones to gather nutrition 31 information at school or daycare and then share those ideas with their parent(s) while grocery shopping, “thus expanding their knowledge about nutrition and improving the eating habits of the entire family” (p. 221). While the impact of nutrition information at places like Head Start2 and school on children has been researched substantially, the impact of media messaging, from sources like Sesame Street, on children and their families in regards to social issues has not. As Sukovic describes, children actively influence their parent(s)’ purchasing habits when it comes to foods, so it only makes sense that ultimately their sources of information about food, Sesame Street in this case, are directly influencing family food choices and habits. Beyond that, the messaging of social issues, like justice and environmental sustainability are likely to extend to the family level as well, meaning that these media venues have an incredible impact on their choices and collective efficacy. As Bandura (2004) affirms, this is a critical component of social change: People enjoy the benefits left by those before them who collectively fought for social reforms that improved their lives. 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