Giving Compass' Take:
- Caroline Brooks explains the importance of representation in STEM TV shows for children, which currently do not sufficiently include women and Latinx characters.
- What role can funders play in advancing real representation in STEM TV and other STEM media? Are you prepared to tackle this challenge?
- Learn how language stereotypes can generate gender inequities in STEM.
What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Children’s television programming not only shapes opinions and preferences, its characters can have positive or negative impacts on childhood aspiration, according to a new study.
The study is the first large-scale analysis of characters featured in science, technology, engineering, and math-related educational programming.
The study in the Journal of Children and Media reveals that of the characters appearing in STEM television programming for kids ages 3 to 6, Latinx and females are left behind.
“Animation presents such an opportunity for representation. Ideally, we’d see authentic representation—not representative stereotypes,” Aladé says. “I hope we move in a direction where kids see what scientists really look like in today’s world, where doctors, engineers, and computer scientists come from all ethnicities and genders.”
Read the full article about diversity in STEM TV by Caroline Brooks at Futurity.