What has Harry Potter Done for Me? Children’s Reflections on their ‘Potter Experience’

Discussions of literacy and achievement tend to focus on school and marginalise home and other out-of-school literacy practices. David Barton and Mary Hamilton’s view of literacy as context-specific suggests that, in a given situation, certain reading practices and concepts of literacy have more value than others (Barton and Hamilton, 1998; Street, 1995). This bias is evident in the way many British educators have continually devalued the kinds of texts that pupils choose to read outside the classroom, narrowing definitions of literacy achievement to children’s capabilities in handling “quality” fiction. Jackie Marsh and Elaine Millard (2000) highlight examples of children who read avidly out of school, but are designated as poor or weak readers in school, because their chosen reading material fails to meet educators’ criteria of quality (see also Moss, 2007; Watson, 2011). Extracurricular reading practices can, however, influence children’s handling of school literacy, since home reading may be gendered and relevant to the perception of fiction reading as feminine (Arnot et al., 1998). When parents engage children in reading activities, they also scaffold children’s literacy skills and confidence as readers; this can subsequently reinforce their school literacy (Heath, 1982; Smith, 2004). When reading activities at home do not occur, or are devalued by teachers, it may be more difficult for children to connect with school assignments and develop a positive “Literacy Self-Concept” (Archambault et al., 2010; Mata, 2011; Rouland et al., 2013). We reiterate Marsh and Millard’s argument that educators should be more accommodating of children’s extra-curricular reading in their teaching of literacy by expanding curricula to include popular fiction, serial novels, and potentially film as starting points for exploring more complex texts (see also Burn and Durran, 2007; Marsh, 2005; Parry, 2013).

Harry Potter has crossed boundaries between home and school. It has a huge following of adult readers, including parents of school-age children (Gupta, 2009), and our data suggest that parents often launch children on their Potter journey. Because of the series’ familiarity to many children, teachers have been able to use it to introduce symbolism and archetypes to their pupils (Kelley, 2013), as well as morphemes (in the characters’ names; see Nilsen and Nilsen, 2005) and criticism of gender stereotyping (Killoran et al., 2004). One reason for this familiarity is the fact that Potter represents a global literary, cinematic and commercial phenomenon, but equally crucial is children’s shared knowledge of and enthusiasm for the series. The Potter novels fulfil the role of what Lev Vygotsky (1978) terms “cultural tools”: reference points that stimulate interaction and facilitate learning and cognitive development. The more familiar a cultural tool is to a child, the greater its potential benefit for learning. Vygotsky’s emphasis on interaction in learning processes underscores the social nature of literacy, which reinforces Barton and Hamilton’s view that literacy is best understood as a set of social practices. As part of the “Harry Potter experience,” children share the text “in discussion with friends as highlights are recalled, on bulletin boards and websites, or at Harry Potter parties, where episodes and activities are relived” (Moss, 2007, p. 116). The potential benefits of Harry Potter for developing children’s literacy lie, consequently, not only in the act of reading the text, but also in related discussions and other (shared) activities, such as reading and writing fan fiction, watching the films, and playing Potter playground and computer games. Surprisingly, given children’s ubiquitous uses of new technologies and online communication (Carrington and Marsh, 2005; Marsh, 2011), Harry Potter computer games and fan fiction were rarely mentioned in our data (see below), but there were numerous references to the films. We therefore include below a discussion of how the films intersected with, and sometimes enhanced, children’s engagement with the books. We also acknowledge the importance of the films in the series’ success and in children’s Potter experience overall.

The central issue for this article is not whether literacy practices surrounding Harry Potter result in measurable increases in educational achievements. We are interested instead in what readers say about the series’ impact on their reading, both in terms of chosen texts and genres, and in relation to their “Literacy Self-Concept.” The findings reported here draw on a wider study in which pupils from four British schools were asked about their Potter experience. As the series is now complete, an in-depth study of young readers’ perspectives can reveal how they conceive of the full experience, including the books, films, computer games, and any possible relationships between these media (Burn, 2005; Burn and Durran, 2007). The second decade of the twenty-first century also supplies a unique vantage point from which to explore the perspectives of young readers, since it is now possible to juxtapose two datasets: teenagers, who came of age with the series, and younger children, for whom Potter remains relevant. Studies involving Potter readers can thus shed light on the apparent “magic” of the series that has been proclaimed in the media and various anecdotes.

We draw the term Literacy Self-Concept (LSC) from Marsh and Shavelson’s multidimensional model of self-concept (1985). LSC is a subcomponent of a broader Academic Self-Concept (ASC), which refers to individuals’ understanding and evaluation of their abilities in academic endeavours. Learners with a high ASC tend to achieve highly, because confidence enhances motivational response and perseverance. ASC is subdivided into Mathematical and Verbal Self-Concepts; the latter deals with children’s beliefs in their abilities in subject areas such as English, foreign languages and the humanities (Marsh, 1990). Self-concepts can be further subdivided into perceptions of ability within components of each subject. In English, the Literacy Self-Concept pertains to a learner’s beliefs about their reading, writing, and oral skills. A positive LSC influences, and is influenced by, positive attainments in reading (Archambault et al., 2010; Mata, 2011; Rouland et al., 2013). Our study seeks to ascertain whether and how Harry Potter contributes to children’s development of a Literacy Self-Concept, which may be beneficial in developing a positive self-view as a reader and in improving children’s achievement in English and other school subjects.

Our study involved two primary (PS1, PS2) and two secondary schools (SS1, SS2) in the North West of England and was carried out between November 2012 and June 2013. All four schools were co-educational and state funded. Both primaries and one secondary were affiliated to, and partially funded by, Christian denominations, which is characteristic of schools in the area. The first phase of this study involved a questionnaire with 621 respondents (N = 621) in which 56 % of primary and 48 % of secondary pupils self-identified as Potter readers, meaning they had read at least one of the books.¹ From this subsample we invited 76 “enthusiasts” (34 boys and 42 girls) to participate in single-sex focus groups. “Enthusiasts” were defined as children who reported on their questionnaire that they had read four or more Potter novels, though in order to have sufficient participants, we lowered the bar to two novels for boys and girls in PS1 and for boys in PS2 and SS2. We ran 11 single-sex focus groups facilitated by a same-sex researcher: one of boys and one of girls in each primary, and four of girls and three of boys in the two secondary schools. Groups ranged from three to ten pupils; equal-sized groups were not possible because of absences or because subject teachers did not permit children to attend an entire session.

Focus groups can elicit rich, multi-faceted (sometimes contrasting) responses, because participants talk to each other as well as to the facilitator. They provide a context that may be less intimidating than a dyadic interview with an unknown researcher (Cohen et al., 2011). We opted for single-sex groups, as we felt it would enable children to feel more comfortable if they wished to talk about gender issues. With the exception of a stilted discussion with three very shy girls in PS1, all groups were forthcoming and lively, and pupils were largely respectful of one another’s positions. Children were encouraged to break silences, talk to each other, and to respond to, and build on, the comments of other members. The seven Potter books were present in each group to serve as a reminder of the titles and their sequence, and to stress that we were mainly talking about the books—although we also asked specific questions about the films.

We acknowledge that the data refer to what was said and jointly constructed in the context of the focus group and, due to a myriad of factors—including relationships within the focus group, children not wanting to create conflict, or children seeing the facilitator as an authority figure—these words may not necessarily capture what the children actually thought, felt, believed or even did (see Block, 2000; Cohen et al., 2011). However, like Richard Krueger, we recognise that the purpose of focus groups is neither to generalise nor “to make statements about the population,” but to understand and outline the “range” of insights on how individuals reportedly “perceive a situation” (Krueger, 1994, p. 3). We are mindful of these considerations in our approach to data analysis and claims that can be made.

Each focus group discussion was recorded and transcribed. The analysis began with a collaborative brainstorm of possible core categories related to our research questions, such as influences encouraging the children to read Potter, LSC and comments about specific Potter characters, books, and films. The transcripts were uploaded to Atlas.ti computer software, which enabled the systematic coding (tagging) of these categories. We included a range of evaluative codes including “like,” “dislike,” “easy” and “difficult.” The resultant list enabled us to run subsequent searches on any number and combination of codes, which were then isolated from the main body of data and grouped together. The key findings for each research question are organized by focus group and outlined below. Each set is prefaced by brief observations from the earlier questionnaire study.

This quote illustrates the importance of home literacy practices in children’s LSC development, as this pupil learned a specific vocabulary building strategy from her father.

Since the secondary-school pupils probably had more sophisticated vocabularies, it is likely that any vocabulary-learning potential of Potter would be less salient to them than to the primary children. Alternatively, given that children tend to lose faith in their academic abilities as they get older (Marsh, 1989), it is possible that self-consciousness made them reticent to talk about this.

The Literacy Self-Concept also pertains to writing, which, while not the focus of our study, was mentioned by two pupils in the focus groups. One secondary boy noted: “You can […] use ideas from the Harry Potter series” in writing activities at school, which suggests Potter improved the writing element of his LSC, particularly if he received positive feedback. One girl (from SS2) stated that Potter had “made my imagination a lot better.” In general, lack of reference to writing could be attributed to the fact that children may see writing and reading as distinct skills, rather than related and mutually reinforcing (Grabe, 2001). Teachers stressing the links between reading and writing could help maximise the benefits of extracurricular reading of Potter and other popular fiction (see also Parry, 2013).

A minority of enthusiasts said they did not feel Harry Potter helped develop their reading skills. These pupils (five boys across PS1, SS1 and SS2, and three girls in SS1) indicated that they were good readers before embarking on the series. One boy said he had read The Lord of the Rings before Harry Potter, and that he had found the former more difficult. One SS1 girl said that reading books in general had improved her future reading, not Harry Potter in particular.

Except for the quote above, there was little evidence to support the media claims that Harry Potter has converted boys from non-fiction to fiction. None of our participants exclusively read non-fiction (see below). In the majority of the groups, participants said they read some non-fiction as part of a broader diet of texts and genres.

These data suggest that Harry Potter augmented some children’s desire to read more magic and fantasy, which, as other research highlights, are perennial favourites of children irrespective of gender (Clark and Foster, 2005; Davila and Patrick, 2010; Dungworth et al., 2004). However, other children stated that Potter had inspired them to read other genres, for example Michael Morpurgo’s historical novels (both primary boys’ groups).

To answer our third research question, we specifically looked for gender-related tendencies in our data. The questionnaires showed no statistically significant gender differences regarding perceived improvements in, or attitudes to, reading. A higher percentage of girls than boys self-identified as good readers, but this was not significant. Likewise, the focus groups did not suggest any relationship between gender and the perceived influence of Harry Potter on children’s LSC. Indeed, there were many differences among the individual focus groups as well as across the gender groups. Having said that, subtle tendencies were noted. In particular, in two of the five boys’ focus groups, a minority of participants stated that the thickness of the books was why they stopped reading the series. In contrast, in the girls’ groups, reading a thick book was consistently seen as an achievement. Similarly, boys reported reading a wider range of non-fiction material than girls. Across the five boys’ groups a total of 24 boys mentioned magazines and annuals (particularly about football), as well as books on history, science, maths, computing, space and the weather. In four of the six girls’ groups, a total of seven girls also reported reading non-fiction: two said they read football magazines, two read newspapers, and three told us they liked reading about history, archaeology and forensic science. It is possible that, just as the idea of boys not liking fiction is exaggerated by the media, so too is the idea of girls not liking non-fiction, a proposition worthy of further research.

Despite a general lack of significant gender differences, one interesting gender tendency did emerge from the analysis of peer influence. Our Atlas-ti report yielded 21 extracts in which friends were mentioned, 19 of which came from girls, who started reading a Potter because “my friends were reading it” (SS2). Only two boys mentioned friends. One credited a friend with being his main influence to read Potter (it was actually a female friend). The other talked about his German pen pal, who was reading a Potter novel to improve his English. This suggests that, for our sample, more girls than boys talked about their reading with their (female) peers.