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Article Excerpt
This article presents and evaluates Nuestro Barrio, a Spanish-language telenovela designed to reach Latino immigrants with financial education. Nuestro Barrio's educational model is discussed in the context of the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change, which defines the stages individuals move through as they make incremental progress toward sustained behavior change. The Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change is also used to inform a limited evaluation of the impact of Nuestro Barrio on viewer behavior. The empirical evidence is consistent with Nuestro Barrio's intended educational effects, suggesting that Nuestro Barrio is particularly useful as a tool for raising viewer awareness.
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Raul Yzaguirre, President of the National Council of La Raza, testified to Congress in 2002 that targeted approaches to reaching Latino immigrants should be a priority for financial education efforts. (1) This contention was echoed by participants of a forum sponsored by the GAO (2004), who argued that the specific needs of new immigrants require tailored outreach strategies. These statements suggest that the translation of existing financial education programs is insufficient to meet the needs of new Latino immigrants. Instead, reaching Latino immigrants with financial education requires targeted delivery strategies that focus on topics of distinct interest to Latino immigrants while recognizing diversity within the Latino population. Unfortunately, this model of tailored financial education provision contrasts with the majority of existing financial education initiatives, which seek to widely distribute a standard curriculum.
This article presents and evaluates the alternative financial education model underlying Nuestro Barrio, a Spanish-language telenovela designed to reach Latino immigrants with financial education. Initially run on network television in North Carolina, Nuestro Barrio attempts to attract viewers with its entertainment value as a telenovela while simultaneously providing financial education content. Episodes air in Spanish and address topics of specific interest to Latino immigrants. These characteristics suggest that Nuestro Barrio may overcome several of the barriers that face traditional financial education programs. In particular, Nuestro Barrio's use of the telenovela format to deliver financial education content may allow it to reach households that might not otherwise seek out financial education.
In presenting and discussing Nuestro Barrio's capacity as an educational tool, we rely on the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change (TTM). First developed by researchers studying health behaviors, TTM defines the stages individuals progress through as they move toward sustained behavior change (Prochaska and Norcross 2001). This model is suited to framing the potential benefits of Nuestro Barrio, as the TTM stages explicitly recognize that individuals begin in precontemplation--a stage at which individuals lack awareness of the potential benefits of behavior change. Where Nuestro Barrio may carry the potential to reach these households, traditional financial education programs serve individuals who have sought out instruction and therefore are likely to have progressed beyond precontemplation.
The TTM framework is also used to inform the empirical evaluation of Nuestro Barrio's impacts with respect to two behaviors: bank account ownership and preparation for homeownership. In defining the stages of behavioral change, TTM offers a structure for measuring incremental progress toward behavior change. A first goal of this article is to present Nuestro Barrio's educational model using the TTM framework to discuss Nuestro Barrio's potential as an educational tool. The second objective of this article is to evaluate the impact of Nuestro Barrio on viewer behavior for a small sample of viewers in North Carolina. Interpretation of the evaluation results is limited by the nature of this sample. Nevertheless, the results of the empirical analysis are consistent with the effects of Nuestro Barrio implied by the TTM framework. Specifically, Nuestro Barrio appears to be particularly useful as a tool for raising viewer awareness.
LITERATURE REVIEW
While the discussion in this article is specific to Nuestro Barrio, consideration of Nuestro Barrio's educational model directly addresses a critical gap in the research literature regarding financial education. A first strand of this literature examines the extent of financial illiteracy among American households. For instance, Lusardi (2008) documents demographic gaps in financial literacy by education level, gender, and race. Second, a large number of studies evaluate the effectiveness of traditional financial education programs in educating participants. This literature is simply too large to review exhaustively here, including individual literatures devoted to the effectiveness of homeownership counseling, workplace/retirement education, general financial literacy, and high school financial education programs.
Unfortunately, far less research has examined the potential disconnect between the populations most in need of targeted interventions and the populations served by existing financial education programs. In part, this gap in the literature is due to the diversity of obstacles to financial education across different populations. For instance, financial education programs targeted at Latino immigrants must overcome barriers related to language, curriculum, and trust. In contrast, efforts to increase financial literacy among elderly widows face a much different set of barriers. As a result, delivery of financial education to specific groups often requires tailored approaches that overcome group-specific obstacles (Toussaint-Comeau and Rhine 2000).
The examination of Nuestro Barrio in this article approaches the potential disconnect between financial literacy needs and provision from a different angle. While Nuestro Barrio offers a case study of an initiative tailored to the population of Latino immigrants, Nuestro Barrio's emphasis on entertainment value also recognizes the importance of awareness as a primary obstacle to financial education. TTM theory reinforces this insight, clarifying that individuals begin in precontemplation and may not perceive benefits from financial education. (2) In making this distinction, TTM theory provides a conceptual structure that both elucidates the limitations of existing financial education programs and guides the development of targeted interventions.
Beyond its relevance to the literature on financial education, examination of Nuestro Barrio's educational model reflects the emerging use of social marketing. Recognizing the limitations of existing programs, policy makers and financial educators have begun to experiment with high-scale communications. Since Nuestro Barrio first aired, several financial education providers have begun to devote resources to public service announcements and advertising campaigns that seek to broadly distribute financial education messages. Similarly, advocates have called for a major national media campaign to be a priority for financial education efforts (GAO 2004). Nuestro Barrio's use of the telenovela delivery format speaks directly to these efforts to supplement traditional financial education programs with social marketing initiatives.
NUESTRO BARRIO: TELENOVELA WITH A MESSAGE
The Nuestro Barrio telenovela (soap opera), a Spanish-language miniseries, seeks to provide both entertainment and financial education. Nuestro Barrio's education and outreach model seeks to attract viewers with its entertainment value, simultaneously providing educational value on financial literacy topics. The miniseries of thirteen episodes is the nation's first Spanish-language show distributed on English-speaking networks. Originally broadcast on the WB in North Carolina markets, Nuestro Barrio has since appeared on both for-profit and subsidized television channels throughout the United States, including markets in Chicago, Miami, and New York. As of August 2007, Nuestro Barrio's reach included twenty-five million potential viewers. (3)
In the context of existing financial education programs, Nuestro Barrio's educational model contains several unique features. First and foremost, Nuestro Barrio delivers financial education to viewers in their homes. Concerns about documentation and skepticism of banks may prevent many Latino immigrants from seeking out financial education, particularly from bank- and government-sponsored programs. These factors create barriers to financial education delivery, requiring outreach efforts that alter immigrants' perceptions of financial institutions and that inform potential participants regarding banks' documentation requirements. Nuestro Barrio's educational model directly addresses these obstacles through its use of mainstream media.
A second and related feature of Nuestro Barrio is its use of the telenovela delivery format. Run on network television, Nuestro Barrio is intended to compete for and attract viewers based on its entertainment value, incorporating educational content into the plot and story line of its characters. This equal emphasis on entertainment value is a central component of Nuestro Barrio's model of financial education delivery. By attracting viewers to its story line, Nuestro Barrio carries the potential to reach households that otherwise might not seek out financial education.
Third, Nuestro Barrio's educational curriculum is tailored to the needs of Latino immigrants, covering both core financial education content and topics of specific interest to Latino immigrants. Over the course of the first season, viewers are exposed to the core elements of the homeownership curriculum. Additionally,...
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