In 2025, it is safe to say almost everyone has daily media exposure. How often do you see diverse families or diverse parenting practices? If you haven't, chances are your kids haven't either. Many children have limited exposure to differing cultures until adulthood. Television programs are a great way to increase exposure.
Lets take a look at some popular programs that expose children to diverse cultures:
- Sesame Street
- features characters from different racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds
- features characters representing children with disabilities
- highlights different cultural practices and ways of learning
- Dora The Explorer
- features latin culture bilingual language
- only really focuses on one culture, but can be beneficial for children who do not recieve exposure to this culture
- Bluey
- features non-American parenting and development norms
- again, only focuses on one culture, but can be beneficial for children who have different "norms" in their household
This is about the extent of popular diverse programs. The list of popular shows that do not represent other cultures is much longer: Paw Patrol, Cocomelon, Blue's Clues, Bubble Guppies, Octonauts, The Wiggles, the list keeps going.
Many of these shows feature characters of different races, but this is a fairly new concept. It wasn't until the 1960's that non-white characters were included in children's programs. The Civil Rights Movement kicked that into gear so hopefully, as cultural diversity becomes more normalized we will see more differing cultures in our children's television programs.
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