Cognitive and Social Themes in Chidren's Public Television Programming in the United States

This study employed inductive analysis to analyze forty-two PBS children's educational television series in the United States for cognitive and social themes. Series were grouped by age bands of 6 years and under, mixed age, and 6 years and over. Memoing resulted in ten social and cognitive categories, which were ranked and weighted for comparison. The weighted data were sorted in multiple ways for analysis revealing Social and Emotional Behavior as the most predominant category in PBS children's programming, and Mathematics was one of the least predominant categories utilized as a main focus across all age groups. These results raise a concern for a socio-economic divide between those who utilize public broadcasting as a free resource for school readiness and those who invest in programming and other media with more mathematical content.