Rebuilding the Public Service
| Author | Bradley S. Chilton,Lisa M. Chilton |
| Published date | 01 October 1993 |
| Date | 01 October 1993 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X9301300406 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
72
PROFESSIONAL
NOTES
REBUILDING
THE
PUBLIC
SERVICE
Researching
the
Origins
of Public
Perceptions
of the
Public
Service
in
Children’s
Literature
2
Bradley
S.
Chilton
and
Lisa
M.
Chilton
IN
ITS
RECOMMENDATIONS
TO
rebuild
the
public
service,
the
basic
problem
addressed
by
the
Volcker
Commission
was
the
denigrating
af-
fect
of
a
negative,
skeptical
public
per-
ception
of
government
service
(Volcker,
1990:
xvii).
But
why
are
Americans,
even
the
young,
so
skeptical
of
the
public
service?
After
all,
established
scholars
posit
as
a
truism
that
from
early
childhood
Americans
see
pre-
dominantly
positive
depictions
of
the
public
service
in
children’s
literature
(e.g.,
Greenstein, 1960:
941,
n.
18;
Hess
and
Easton,
1960:
643).
Depictions
of
government
authorities
as
almost-god-
like
in
benevolence
and
competence
is
taken
to
be
a
long-standing
tradition
in
children’s
literature
(Zipes, 1979).
Some
have
even
argued
that
children’s
litera-
ture
has
completely
indoctrinated
Americans
into
willing
acceptance
of
the
political
status
quo
(Dorfman
and
Mattelart,
1975;
Dixon,
1977).
Yet,
the
Volcker
Commission
found
that
the
public
had
a
profoundly
negative
per-
ception
of
the
public
service
and
its
Task
Force
on
Public
Perceptions
con-
cluded
that
&dquo;we
know
little
about
the
nature
or
origins
of
public
attitudes&dquo;
toward
the
public
service
(Volcker,
1990:
74).
This
research
note
takes
a
step
to-
ward
understanding
more
about
the
nature
and
origins
of
public
attitudes
toward
the
public
service
by
asking:
does
children’s
literature
by-and-large
depict
the
public
service
as
benevolent
and
competent?
Surprisingly,
this
widely
accepted
assumption
has
gone
untested,
with
the
sole
exception
of
Thomas
Marshall’s
(1981)
study
of
children’s
books
and
television
pro-
grams.
He
found
that
the
public
ser-
vice
was
usually
depicted
as
lone
indi-
viduals
engaged
in
benevolent,
pro-
tective
actions.
Marshall
concluded
that,
&dquo;America’s
child-oriented
mass
media
produce
an
overwhelmingly
fa-
vorable
portrait
of
the
public
sector
for
America’s
youth&dquo;
(Marshall,1981:
397).
Timothy
Cook
contested
this
con-
clusion,
objecting
to Marshall’s
ran-
dom
sampling
of
children’s
literature
(Cook,
1983).
He
admitted
that
it
would
only
be
a
methodological
quibble
were
it
not
for
the
fact
that
depictions
of
the
public
service
by
the
most
popular
children’s
authors,
espe-
cially
Dr.
Seuss,
do
not
conform
to
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