Ameera’s Reflection: How Muppets Offer a Window and Mirror
Authentic representation in children’s media
October 11 marks the tenth anniversary of the International Day of the Girl Child — a day to champion girls’ rights and recognize the unique barriers and challenges girls around the world continue to face. Sesame Workshop has a long history of creating diverse, relatable girl characters who model gender equity, possibility, and more — and with whom children form strong bonds through the instrument of media.
Children’s educational media has the power to be both a window and mirror into children’s lives. As a window, educational media can expose children to new foods, new geographies, or new ways of celebrating community.
As a mirror, it can reflect a child’s identity, helping children develop important parasocial relationships with their friends on TV that supports their learning. For children with disabilities, there is continued need to include authentic, fully developed characters that offer them a mirror, so they feel seen and represented, while also offering a window to children who may not have yet had the chance to become friends with a child with a disability.
Our response to the need
In 2021, Sesame Workshop created Watch, Play, Learn (WPL), a series of early learning animation videos designed to bring playful early learning to children everywhere, with particular attention to the unique needs and experiences of children affected by crises such as conflict or displacement.
In addition to featuring beloved Sesame Street Muppet characters like Elmo and Cookie Monster, WPL introduced a new Muppet named Ameera. Ameera is an 8-year-old girl who is deeply inquisitive, loves science, and seizes every opportunity to crack a good joke. Ameera has a spinal cord injury, and she gets around using forearm crutches or her wheelchair. This wheelchair has two polka-dotted storage pouches from which Ameera can pull just about anything — a trumpet, a compass, a microscope, or even a mischievous chicken friend!
What we needed to know
To create WPL, we invested heavily in formative research during the development process to make sure that the content was appealing and relevant for children across diverse global contexts. We tested extensively with children across 9 countries and 11 languages, but we struggled to recruit children with disabilities in the process, meaning that while we tested the ‘window,’ we still needed to test the ‘mirror.’
Read the full article at Sesame.org.
By Kim Foulds, Vice President of Content Research and Evaluation, and Scott Cameron, Head of International Production at Sesame Workshop
