Presenters
Abstract
This paper examines representations of the childcare educator in popular American and Canadian television. An in-depth search for television episodes that included significant depictions of educators working in group childcare resulted in 25 episodes, representing 15 different programmes. Approximately half of the programmes are geared toward a child audience (e.g., Rugrats, Adventure Time, The Adventures of Napkin Man, Fairly Odd Parents, Full House, and Caillou), while the rest are situation comedies that target an adult or family audience (e.g., Family Guy, The Office, Last Man Standing, The Mindy Project, Malcolm in the Middle, Raising Hope, and The Simpsons).
Using semiotic and media analysis, the construction of the childcare educator across all texts will also be examined. For example, in terms of gendered representations, the majority of educators depicted are female (which accurately mirrors social reality); when the educator is a male, his gender is a prime source of humour. In terms of racialized depictions, the educators represented are primarily white, which is not representative of the childcare workforce in Canada and the U.S.
The paper will also compare these two sets of texts (child vs family/adult). Often the narratives, especially the child texts, assume a child’s perspective, so that the child is constructed in a complex and perceptive manner, while the educator, who is rarely privileged with a first-person perspective, is constructed as simple and one-dimensional. When parents are represented, they tend to veer between being at the mercy of societal forces that necessitate their competing for a coveted place in an exclusive preschool or capitulating to prison-like childcare situations as a last option.
This paper will be of interest to conference participants who are curious about representations of childhood in popular television, conflicting values around the institutionalization of childcare, and the relationship between childcare educators’ identities and popular culture.