New Study on Children’s Perceptions of Race and Class on Television

by Debbie Reese

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For decades, educators and parents have expressed concern over the ways in which people are portrayed on television. There was a fear that children were getting a skewed concept about people’s abilities and character based on stereotypical representations of gender, race, or class. This fear led to a number of research studies that analyzed the television roles of men, women, people of color, and people of various socio-economic levels.

Berry and Asamen’s edited volume Children & Television: Images in a Changing Sociocultural World (1993) examines many issues related to diversity and representation. Greenberg and Brand’s chapter looks at Saturday morning television programs aired on ABC, CBS, and NBC during April of 1992. Of twenty programs, three featured regularly appearing African Americans, one featured a Hispanic American, and there were no Asian or Native Americans.

Calvert’s (1997) research on gender and ethnic portrayals in Saturday morning television programs found that male characters spoke an average of 10 minutes and 46 seconds, while female characters spoke an average of 2 minutes and 55 seconds. Caucasian and ethnic minority representation in the programs was 73.6% and 26.4%, respectively. Ethnic minority females were not represented in major roles on the ABC and NBC networks, but were represented on CBS and Fox 16% and 5% of the time, respectively.

Children Now, a nonpartisan, independent organization for children, recently released A Different World: Children’s Perceptions of Race and Class in Media. This book contains the results of a nationwide survey for which researchers polled 1,200 children between the ages of 10 and 17.

Detailed information on the study is available at the Children Now Web site. (http://www.childrennow.org/) Some key findings include:

• Children of all races watch a great deal of television including a wide variety of programs.

• African-American children strongly feel that entertainment media represent their race more fairly than the news media (47% to 25%). Asian children feel the opposite, slightly favoring the news media (36% to 28%). Both White and Latino children are split between the two.

• Children of color primarily choose African-Americans as those they admire, and White children primarily choose White television figures as their favorites.

• When asked why they admire a character, most children first say "because they are funny." After that, children of color are most likely to say "because I look up to them," and White children are more likely to say "because they act the way I want to act."

• White and African-American children say they see people of their race on television while Latino and Asian children are much less likely to see their race represented.

• Children think that White characters on entertainment television programs are most likely to be shown in a positive way while Latino characters are most likely to be negatively portrayed.

• Children across all races associate positive characteristics more with the White characters they see on television and negative characteristics more with the minority characters.

• All children agree that the roles of boss, secretary, police officer, and doctor in television programs are usually played by White people while the roles of criminal and maid/janitor on television are usually played by African-Americans. Never do children see Latino or Asian characters as the dominant person in the listed roles.

• Children of color think families on television have more money than their families, while White children are equally likely to say that families on TV have the same amount of money as their families. When asked whether race or money divide people in America more, White children are more likely to say money than race, while African-American, Latino, and Asian children are split between the two.

• Although children think that all races are shown doing "both" good and bad things on the news, they agree that the news media tends to portray African-American and Latino people more negatively than White and Asian people.

• When looking at news portrayals of teenagers of different races, feelings become even stronger. Children are even more likely to see White and Asian teenagers portrayed mostly positively and to see African-American and Latino teenagers portrayed mostly negatively.

• Large majorities of African-American, Asian, and Latino children feel there should be more people of their race as newscasters, while most White children feel there are enough White newscasters.

While there is considerable debate regarding the extent to which television affects children’s attitudes and behaviors, parents are encouraged to monitor their children’s viewing and to watch alongside the child. This allows for discussion that can counter negative messages children may see in television programs.

Many online resources are available to help parents guide their children’s television viewing. Some are:

Guidelines for Family Television Viewing (Available in English and Chinese.)
http://ericeece.org/pubs/digests/1990/famtv90.html

Television Violence: Content, Context, and Consequences, by Amy Aidman
http://ericeece.org/pubs/digests/1997/aidman97.html

What Do Parents Need to Know about Children's Television Viewing?
http://www.aspensys.com/eric/resources/parent/tv.html

Sources

Berry, Gordon L., & Asamen, Joy Keiko (Eds.). (1993). Children and television: images in a changing sociocultural world. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Calvert, Sandra L. (1997, April). Gender and ethnic portrayals in Saturday morning television programs. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Washington, DC. ED407119

Children Now. (1998). New study finds children see inequities in media’s race and class portrayals [Online]. Available: http://www.childrennow.org [1998, June 23].

Greenberg, Bradley S., & Brand, Jeffrey E. (1993). Cultural diversity on Saturday morning television. In Gordon L. Berry & Joy Keiko Asamen (Eds.), Children and Television: Images in a Changing Sociocultural World (pp. 132-142). Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Credits

July 1998

Published monthly by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Children's Research Center, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, IL 61820-7469. This publication was funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under contract no. DERR93002007. Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the Department of Education.

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