How Educational Is Educational Television? Transferable Knowledge and Linguistic Markers in Children’s Television Programming

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Abstract

The goal of the current study is to examine how television functions as a source of content knowledge for pre-school-aged children. To that end, we conduct a content analysis of popular children’s television programs and ask 1) how much content knowledge is present in children’s television and 2) is that knowledge marked by the use of generic noun phrases. Preliminary results suggest that educational television contains a limited amount of transferable content knowledge, but that this knowledge is marked in such a way as to be accessible. These results suggest that while educational television is currently limited, it does have the potential to operate as a knowledge-building support.

Author

• Tanya Kaefer, Lakehead University