Research about the Reception of Rruga Sesam and Ulica Sezam in Kosovo

"Sesame Kosovo provides an important non-formal mechanism to help children age 3-7 gain basic cognitive and social skills. The series also fosters the development of socio-emotional attitudes and skills needed in a society in the process of reconciliation, thereby helping to establish a foundation for respect and understanding among social and ethnic groups in Kosovo."

This 53-page document discusses the purpose, methodology, and results of a study exploring children's reactions to Rruga Sesam (Albanian) and Ulica Sezam (Serbian) - two versions of the educational television show for pre-schoolers called Sesame Street. By using an entertaining "magazine" format consisting of short "street scenes", animations, live action pieces, and studio segments featuring puppets, the show is designed to present an array of educational experiences to enhance and expand the knowledge and attitudes of Kosovo's children. A key goal of the edutainment series is to work toward countering negative stereotypes by presenting ethnic Serbian and Albanian children with positive images of each other. Depicting children from different backgrounds in their daily life contexts is a strategy for helping young children living in Kosovo become more respectful and understanding of each another's culture by building a more humanised conception of "the other".

At the request of the series' producer, Sesame Workshop, the Kosovo-based Prism Research undertook research to document the responses of 32 Albanian and 34 Serbian children to Rruga Sesam and Ulica Sezam. The research addressed the following questions:

1. Are children attentive to and engaged in Rruga Sesam and Ulica Sezam?
2. Do children like the live-action films (LAFs) from Kosovo that are part of the series?
3. Do viewers recognise the children in the LAFs as being from a particular ethnic group?
4. How do Serbian-speaking and Albanian-speaking children respond to LAFs produced in Kosovo that feature children of their own ethnic group? How they respond to films featuring the other ethnic group?
5. What messages do children learn from the series' non-local dubbed content?
6. What are the attitudes of children after watching Rruga Sesam and Ulica Sezam?

The children were divided into 16 viewing groups with a minimum of 4 children per group. Approximately half of the children saw an episode with an Albanian LAF (in their mother tongue) and the other half watched an episode with a Serbian LAF (again dubbed into their own language). Four episodes of the TV programme were used in the study. Researchers tested engagement using a standard procedure that involves observing children's behaviours while viewing. Trained childcare professionals then conducted interviews with the children in their home languages.

Results are presented in detail within this document, and focus on such measures as behaviour during the screenings, particular components of each episode children recalled, opinions/attitudes about the programmes on the whole and specific content from them, and so on. Among the highlights:

• There were no significant differences between Albanian and Serbian children in terms of their focus on the content of screened programme. Regardless of their ethnic origin, children kept their eyes on the screen most of the time (average percentage of children looking at the screen was 88%).
• Most Albanian children showed a general liking of both episodes of Rruga Sesam, while the opinions of Serbian children were diverse (for Episode 1 of Ulica Sezam) or negative (Episode 2 of Ulica Sezam).
• Although there was a range of formats mentioned as favourites (e.g., a studio segment with puppets), animations emerged as the children's most reported favourites.
• Examination of children's reactions to Quiftelia, a locally produced clip showing an ethnic Albanian girl learning to make a musical instrument with her grandfather, led to the conclusion that "the answers by children - mindless of their ethnic origin - are in most cases neutral, and that children did not judge the girl from the story as a member of their own or some other ethnic group but rather as a child similar to them." Physical attributes where what children most commonly linked to similarities and differences.
• To gain a general sense of children's perceptions of other group, researchers showed a card to the children with a picture of a man and asked them: (in the case of Albanian children) "This man is a Serb? What do you know about Serbs?" or (in the case of Serbian children) "This man is an Albanian? What do you know about Albanians?" In general, they found that ethnic Albanian children were more likely to reflect bias statements about Serbians than ethnic Serbian children were of Albanians. (Notably, only 40% of the Albanian children’s responses were positive about their own ethnic group).

An excerpt from the Conclusion follows:

"Taken together the results of the study provide evidence that the series has made a notable contribution toward reaching this aim and has set into motion the building of a foundation for future interventions oriented around respect and understanding. Yet, the findings also point to important lessons from the project and suggested ways of enhancing such work in the future...

Difficulty Identifying Social Cues Points to a Need for More Explicit Indicators of Cultural Context:...For children to benefit from the cross-cultural aspect of the live-action films their messages need to be explicit. The fact that children viewed the live actions in versions dubbed into their home languages had the benefit of engaging them and seemingly aided understanding of the basic action taking place; yet the benefit of providing an accessible experience through the dubbing was to a large degree negated by the fact that home language presentation confused children about the ethnic origin of the stories depicted. It made it more difficult for viewers to understand that they were, in fact, viewing a scenario from the "other" culture. Furthermore, our findings also indicate that children from both groups have very minimal knowledge of basic elements of each other's cultures. Such results point to a need for and opportunity to expand children's knowledge by providing more direct illustrations and explanations of basic aspects of each culture...

To Identify True Impact, the Scope of the Research Needs to Be Broadened and More Refined Measures Need to be Used: A final lesson comes for the engagement in the research itself....It is recommended that for future seasons of the project, the producers seek more substantial funding to conduct a more complete examination of impact. That being said, the study, although small in scale, does contribute to a larger body of relevant research that when taken together may help to shed light on the effect of such media endeavors. Furthermore, the current study contributed to the more refined development of measures to study children's cultural perceptions and provides information that advances researchers' abilities study this complex arena..."