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Q: “Did Bambi’s mother know it was going to rain when thunder was
heard?”
A: “Yes, she did.”
*Q: “Why did the deer run away?”
A: “They were afraid of human beings.”
Q: “Where was Bambi’s father?”
A: “He was not around because he had to protect everybody.”
Q: “ Why could Bambi not walk and talk at first and even tell ‘birds’
from ‘butterflies’?”
A: “When you were first born, you were just like Bambi. You have to
learn things little by little.”
Q: “Why was the rabbit called ‘beater’?”
A: “Because he knew how to make sounds.”
*Q: “Why did the father deer have antlers?”
A: “The antlers make them strong and they could protect the mother
and Bambi. They look nice, don’t they?”
(Questions marked by “*” happened to be questions used to measure the
participants’ comprehension of the program.)
Many parents discussed the cartoon with their child after viewing. The topics for
discussion were mainly moral lessons the child could draw from the program. The
parents told the child how to be polite, how to protect small animals and how to deal with
difficulties in real life. It seemed that co-viewing could facilitate communication between
the parent and the child and contribute to the child’s social learning process.
Conclusions
Compared with their Western counterparts, the Chinese preschoolers sampled for
this study seem to watch much less television due to the fact that the childcare center
does not include television viewing as part of their daily activities. In general, television
is not regarded as a tool for preschool education in China. To the Chinese children,
Convention