Social guidance film

Social guidance films constitute a genre of educational films attempting to guide children and adults to behave in certain ways. Originally produced by the U.S. government as "attitude-building films" during World War II, the genre grew to be a common source of instruction in elementary and high school classrooms in the USA from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. The films covered topics including courtesy, grammar, social etiquette and dating, personal hygiene and grooming, health and fitness, civic and moral responsibility, sexuality, child safety, national loyalty, racial and social prejudice, juvenile delinquency, drug use, and driver safety; the genre also includes films for adults, covering topics such as marriage, business etiquette, general safety, home economics, career counseling and how to balance budgets.

Social guidance films were generally produced by corporations such as Coronet Instructional Films, Centron Corporation for Young America Films, and occasionally by better-known companies such as Ford Motor Company, Encyclopædia Britannica and Crawley Films for McGraw-Hill Book Company. Many were also made by independent producers, most notably the prolific maverick independent filmmaker Sid Davis. Few of these films featured notable actors or celebrities, and only a few were ever produced by a major Hollywood studio, such as the films made by Walt Disney Productions and Warner Bros. In rare instances, the films were sponsored by a major company such as Kotex or General Motors. Ken Smith, in his seminal 1999 book on the genre, Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945 - 1970, estimates that there were "around three thousand" films made that fall into the "social guidance" film genre.

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