Sesame Street

Research

Sesame Street has maintained a rigourous research standard since its foundation, to ensure that the programming is addressing the needs of its viewers. The Education and Research (E&R) department of Sesame Workshop is currently headed by Rosemarie T. Truglio, Ph.D. and Jeanette Betancourt, Ed.D.. Truglio states that the level of interaction between E&R, Content, and Production is "ntimately·hand-in-hand. They are not creating anything without our knowledge, our guidance and our review. We are involved in content development across all media platforms." This close-knit organizational structure has been an integral part of Sesame Workshop since it began.

Related Topics:
Rosemarie T. Truglio, Ph.D. - Jeanette Betancourt, Ed.D.

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Writers create plots for Sesame Street scenes and segments, and the content is reviewed by the E&R team. They have authority to reject a script and force rewrites if the content is not acceptable. When a script is factually correct, but includes gray areas that may not be comprehensible to children, the writers and E&R work together to tweak everything. "A balance between content and humor" is always maintained, according to Truglio.

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Since 1988 Sesame Workshop has provided great volumes of content on its website http://www.sesameworkshop.org/parents/ and others such as Random House http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/sesamebeginnings/intro.html. Content ranges from birth to school-age, and includes information on dozens of topics, such as appropriate parenting techniques, dealing with children's fears, development of literacy, and maintenance a good health.

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Research is funded by government grants, corporate and private donations (including, recently, The Prudential Foundation for the Sesame Beginnings program), and the profits gained from the sale of Sesame Workshop merchandise.

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Healthy Habits for Life

In 2005, Sesame Street launched its Healthy Habits for Life programming, to encourage young viewers to lead more active and nutritious lifestyles. A major catalyst for this was data published by the US Centers for Disease Control regarding obesity in children.

Related Topics:
Centers for Disease Control - Obesity

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Health content has existed on Sesame Street for years, but to a limited extent. In one instance press kits for a project were made available, news wires latched onto the story, and literally hundreds of newspapers touted that Cookie Monster was "going on a diet". In actuality there was no change to Cookie's character. The new season featured a new segment with rapper Wyclef Jean singing the praises of fruits and vegetables, similar to segments in the 1990s which featured Cookie doing nearly the same.

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According to people from Sesame Workshop, "Health has always been a part of our Sesame Street curriculum, therefore we will always be committed to ensuring kids are given information and messages that will help them become healthy and happy in their development. For season 36, we have turned up the dial in health, but it will always be part of our curriculum."

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The Workshop formed an Advisory Board consisting of experts like Woodie Kessel, M.D., M.P.H., the Assistant Surgeon General of the United States. This board examines the research of other organizations, and also conducts pilot studies to determine which areas of research should be expanded, based on social, ethnic and socio-economic sections of the population.

Related Topics:
Woodie Kessel - Surgeon General

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