Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: In Conversation: An OUP Podcast
Episode: Naomi A. Moland, "Can Big Bird Fight Terrorism?: Children's Television and Globalized Multicultural Education" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Description: Sesame Street has taught generations of Americans their letters and numbers, and also how to better understand and get along with people of different races, faiths, ethnicities, and temperaments. But the show has a global reach as well, with more than thirty co-productions of Sesame Street that are viewed in over 150 countries. In recent years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided funding to the New York-based Sesame Workshop to create international versions of Sesame Street. Many of these programs teach children to respect diversity and tolerate others, which some hope will ultimately help to build pea...