Explores the role children's cartoon programs may play in forming sex role identities in children through the presentation of sex-typed personality attributes of the cartoon characters. Fourteen dependent variables of cartoon character personality were analyzed by sex of the character and sex of the viewer. (JVP)

The problem of sex-role stereotyping on television has been studied by trying to develop television materials that are explicitly counter-stereotypic in terms of sex-roles. The development of a new television series "Freestyle," aimed at 9-12 year old children and their families, has led to some important observations about children's perceptions…

Sesame Street programs are perpetuating the subjugated role of females by presenting a picture of male-dominated society while portraying females in roles of following, cleaning, mothering and imitating, and as being of limited intelligence, subservient and passive. Analysis of a randomly chosen Sesame Street program (#189) shows how the series…

Finds that male characters outnumbered female characters by a ratio of 2:1, but that female characters enjoyed far greater representation in cartoons produced in Japan than in cartoons produced in the United States and Great Britain. Shows that characters conformed to gender-related stereotypes, with males being more aggressive, rough, sloppy, and…

Describes a study that examined the portrayals of female characters on four educational science television series for children and discusses those portrayals in the light of other research on television and socialization. Topics include children's perceptions of occupational sex roles; theories of sex-role development; and implications for future…

Children from grades one through six judged commercially produced advertisements, specially produced "pseudocommercials," and verbal descriptions as better suited to advertise a feminine or masculine sex-typed toy. Comprehension of sex-typed connotations was predicted by home television viewing patterns but not by general knowledge of sex…

Findings indicate that the language of characters from children's television programs, both educational and commercial, is clearly gender-differentiated, producing attributions that are consistent with sex-role stereotypes. (PD)

Television programming has long been recognized as an effective method of educating children. This paper investigated the degree of exposure an educational children's program, Sesame Street, gave to female and male characters and the extent to which these characters were stereotypically portrayed. Children's Television Workshop produces 110…

The bibliography on analyses of television programing provided in this paper indicates the types of content analyses that have been conducted on television programing over much of the last 30 years. Compiled after a review of relevant books and the back issues of "Journal of Communication,""Journal of Broadcasting," and "Journalism Quarterly," the…

Project "Freestyle" involved the development of prototypical television materials and a comic book intended to combat sex-role stereotyping in the career-related attitudes of nine to twelve-year-old children. This paper reports the results of four types of research conducted during the early development of the television series to…

This study is the main element of the summative evaluation of "Freestyle," a television series on sex-role stereotyping and career awareness. The series was developed for fourth to sixth graders viewing it at home or at school and contains 13 half-hour episodes. In seven test sites across the country, 268 teachers used…

This case study is one element of the summative evaluation of "Freestyle," a television series on sex-role stereotyping and career awareness. The series was developed for fourth to sixth graders viewing it at home or at school. The goal of this study was to organize the history of the project so as to present transferable lessons to the…