Biographical Information for

Diane E. Levin, Ph.D.

Diane Levin is Professor of Education at Wheelock College in Boston where she has been involved in training early childhood professionals for over twenty-five years. Currently she teaches courses on play, media and violence prevention and leads an annual service-learning program for Wheelock students and alumni to Belfast, “How Early Childhood Programs Can Help Communities Affected by Conflict Heal: Lessons from Northern Ireland.” Levin has a B.S. in Child Development from Cornell University, an M.S.Ed. in Special Education from Wheelock College, and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Tufts University in Sociology of Education and Child Development.

An internationally recognized expert, Levin helps professionals and parents understand and counteract the harmful effects of violence, media and commercial culture on children. She has given keynote addresses and conducted training throughout the United States, as well as in such countries as Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Jamaica, Portugal, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. She also takes Wheelock students on a service learning course to Northern Ireland to explore how early childhood programs can help communities affected by violence hear.

Levin is the author or coauthor of eight books including: From Conflict to Peace Building: Lessons for Early Childhood Programs around the World (with Paul Connolly and Jacqueline Hayden Hayden); Teaching Young Children in Violent Times: Building a Peaceable Classroom; Remote Control Childhood? Combating the Hazards of Media Culture; and, The War Play Dilemma (with Nancy Carlsson-Paige). Her newest book, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids (with Jean Kilbourne), will be published by Ballantine Books in September 2008. She has also published extensively in early childhood and education journals as well as in the popular press.

Among her consulting, Levin served as Senior Advisor for five PBS Parents web sites: “A Parents’ Guide to Girls,” “Talking with Children about the News,” Talking to Kids about War and Violence,” “How to Raise a Child Who Cares,” and “The PBS Parents Guide to School.” She also was the senior advisor for PBS Families Magazine from 1997 to 2005. Levin has worked on the American Psychological Association’s “ACT Against Violence” Project and Consumer Reports annual toy review article. She developed statewide violence prevention training for childcare providers for the State of Maine. She co-wrote The “So Far” Guide for Helping Children and Youth Cope with the Deployment of a Parent in the Military Reserves” for Project SoFar (Strategic Outreach to Families of All Reservists)—www.sofarusa.org. She has also been the Expert panelist and consultant for 3 New York State (SUNY) child care training videoconference sessions: “How Media Affects Gender and Sexual Development,” “Too Sexy, Too Soon: The Sexualization of Childhood,” and “Violence Prevention: Creating a Safe Haven for Children in Your Program.”

Levin is a founding member of Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (TRUCE: www.truceteachers.org), which prepares materials to help parents deal with the media and commercial culture in their children’s lives. She is also a founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC: www.commercialfreechildhood.org), which works to education the public about and end the commercial exploitation of children.

Among her awards and recognition, Levin received the Gordon Marshall Research Award from Wheelock College in 2006 to assist in the preparation of her book, So Sexy So Soon. In 2003, she was the recipient the Abigail Eliot Award for contributions to the early childhood community from the Boston Association for the Education of Young Children.

Levin’s work has been covered widely in the media including: The Boston Globe, BBC, CNBC, Good Morning American, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “Talk of the Nation,” NBC Nightline, Time Magazine, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post.