HARRY POTTER" AND MORAL VALUES LEARNING: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF THE RESPONSE OF CHILDREN AGED 11-13 YEARS AGAINST J.K. ROWLING BOOKS

DOI:10.31933/DIJEMSS Abstract: "Harry Potter" and Moral Value Learning is a qualitative study of the response of students aged 11-13 at an international Christian school in Bekasi, Indonesia, towards the phenomenal J.K Rowling text. Through the hermeneutic method, this research tried to seek the influence of Harry Potter texts, which are suspected of bringing adverse effects for their young readers. Besides, this research offers rational considerations to the authority in schools, especially regarding matters related to book censorship. Three things investigated in this study were the ability of students to think critically in making a distinction between fiction and facts in the Harry Potter text, the influence of the Harry Potter text on students' tendencies of violence and occultism, and finally about student learning of moral values contained in the text. The data was collected through in-depth interviews with two male respondents and three female respondents aged 11-13 years with a high religious background, mediocre, and less significant religious background. It was found that all respondents were able to distinguish between fiction and facts in the Harry Potter texts, and there was no significant evidence that the texts influenced respondents' tendency for violence nor respondents' interest in occultism. This study also found that respondents were able to identify the moral values contained in the text.


Research purposes
This study aims to respond to the concerns with the stigma of particular books in the sense of tabooing these books without ever reading them and researching them further. This kind of taboo bases its position on Plato's opinion of mimesis, namely that the reader imitates what he reads. By examining the controversial Harry Potter text suspected of causing adverse effects on its readers, this research seeks to reveal how far Plato's mimesis is proven.
This study also aims to investigate whether respondents can think critically in distinguishing fiction and facts, to investigate the influence of the Harry Potter texts on the tendencies of violence and occultism, and to investigate the extent to which the Harry Potter texts inspire children to moral values.
In the end, this research intends to open a room for negotiations with schools' authorities and families regarding similar books. The banning of literary work needs to be indepth research based, instead of judgemental feeling only.

Theoretical basis
This study uses the opinions of several experts, namely Piaget's theory of cognitive development, Piaget's theory of moral development, the theory of perceptions proposed by Matlin, and Kern and Bettleheim's theories regarding the effect of a reading text on its readers.
Firstly, Piaget with cognitive development theory provides a rationale for the stages of development that occur in children aged 11-13 who are the respondents of this study; in this case, the respondents are at the end of the concrete operational stage and the beginning of the formal operational stage (Rice, 1998). At the concrete operational stage, children show a high capacity to think logically at a concrete level, whereas at the formal operational stage, children can use logic and abstract concepts separately from his concrete objects. As the respondents are at the end of the concrete operational stage and the beginning of the formal operational stage, it is assumed that the respondents are very capable of thinking logically at a concrete level but are still at an early stage in using logic and abstract concepts separately from the concrete objects. Respondents have also begun to be able to think about ideas, think beyond facts in the direction of something that might happen, and form hypotheses. When connected with this research, based on these conditions, respondents should be able to distinguish between facts and fiction in the Harry Potter text. This study is to prove the respondents' ability in that area. Secondly, the same expert's opinion, Piaget's, is used to see the development of respondents' moral judgment. The description of Piaget's stages of moral development is classified based on the stages of cognitive development. In other words, moral judgment develops with age (Atkinson, 1996). In this study, his opinion is used to find out the extent of respondents' moral development so that the ability of respondents to understand moral values in the text can be predicted.
Thirdly, Bettelheim (1976) and Kern (2006) share the same opinion that a reading text affects its reader. According to Kern, readers are not subjects who passively accept what is written. Even young readers can process the text they read. Based on Bettelheim and Kern's thoughts and the controversy over the Harry Potter texts, this research will investigate the extent to which the Harry Potter texts influence the respondents' tendencies towards violence and the occult. Besides, the research will examine the influence of the texts on the respondents' value orientation. Bettelheim believes that fairy tales provide moral values ready to be captured by respondents. This research will examine whether the respondent can "catch" the values, either positive or negative values, in the Harry Potter texts.
Finally, Matlin's (1994) opinion on the process of perception will be used in this study to explain whether the respondents see the Harry Potter text as an occult fact or something else. This concept of perception explains why two people who see the same thing can have two different opinions about it.

RESEARCH METHODS
This research is a qualitative study using hermeneutics research (Nasution, 1998;Hardiman, 1992) as a means of interpreting the data collected.
The method is selected based on the purpose of the study, namely, describing how readers of the Harry Potter text interpret the text: as fiction that tells the story of magic or the reality of occult practices that attract them to study occultism further. This method also allows researchers to find the extent of the influence of Harry Potter texts on the value orientation of the respondents.

Research subject
This study applies a purposive sample (Fraenkel, 1993) by selecting five students aged 11 to 13 years and attending an international Christian school in Bekasi, Indonesia, as the primary respondents. Sampling with the age range above is based on the consideration that the Harry Potter text is under chapter books category, i.e., a book consisting of several chapters with very minimal story illustrations, which poses too high reading difficulty level for children under ten years old. Besides, this age selection is also based on readers' age recommended by Scholastic for the 5th to 7th Harry Potter book series.
The profiles of children selected as respondents are those aged 11-13 years, who have or have been reading more than one of the Harry Potter books. Respondents are from families with Christian backgrounds under the following three categories, with at least one respondent representing each category: 1. a strong Christian background, meaning that the respondent lives in a Christian family that puts a strong emphasis on the formation of Christian values in the lives of the respondent and encourages the application of Christian values in daily life. 2. a mediocre Christian background, meaning that the respondent's family is Christian, encourages Christian values but does not demand the application in daily life. 3. weak Christian backgrounds, meaning that the respondent comes from a Christian family, but there has never been a discussion about Christian values in the family, Christianity is more as a routine.

Research Instruments
The research instruments used in this study are: 1. A series of texts taken from the Harry Potter texts that have been read by respondents. Given the fact that the Harry Potter books consist of seven volumes with a total of more than 4100 pages and not all respondents have read the seven series, the text portion used for each respondent is different but similar. The text referenced will contain the following: a. Harry Potter's actions that break the rules b. heroic actions by Harry Potter or other figures c. the brutality described by Voldemort or his accomplices d. the use of spells to achieve a goal The text is not for the respondents to re-read. It is referred to during the interview to remind them of the segment. It is to find out how far the segment has left an impression in the mind of the respondent and affect the respondent's affective.

Interview.
Interviews with the respondents are conducted naively and in-depth directly based on the interview response. The following set of questions serves as a guideline for the main points. However, it does not rule out the possibility of adaptation of questions per the understanding of respondents and the addition of supporting questions to pursue responses given by respondents. The questions asked will be divided into several types: a. Background questions, asking the respondent's data. b. Affective questions, asking the respondent's affective responses to the Harry Potter texts, to see the extent to which the texts influence the respondent's value orientation. c. Cognitive questions, asking the respondent's cognitive responses to the Harry Potter texts. These questions are to find out the respondent's critical thinking skills in distinguishing between fiction and fact. Besides, the questions examine the respondent's reasoning skills to grasp the values that the Harry Potter texts may contain.
The response to the interview questions is classified into three parts to analyze whether the respondent shows: an ability to distinguish between fiction and fact, the tendency to sympathize with occultism and violence as a result of reading Harry Potter texts, and an ability to identify the moral values in the texts.

Research procedure
This descriptive qualitative study uses narrative interpretation to describe its findings. The materials analyzed are field notes, personal notes, and theory notes.
The steps of the study are as follows: 1. Record prospective respondents by conducting an initial interview. 2. Select five respondents through purposive sampling. 3. Select some books from the Harry Potter series and determine the portion of the book to be used as a research text. 4. Interview five respondents separately to find respondents' interpretations of the text. 5. Describe the results of the study based on direct observation and interviews with respondents.
The procedures for interpreting research data are as follows: 1. Classify the data into four major sections, namely: data about the background of the respondents, data that shows the ability of respondents to distinguish between fiction and fact, data that indicates the tendency of respondents to violence and occultism, and finally the data about respondents' learning of moral values on J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter texts. 2. Prepare a descriptive analysis of each respondent's background by taking into account the age of the respondent and comparing it with the stages of Piaget's cognitive development. 3. Compile a descriptive analysis of the respondent's background related to the level of religiosity in the family, including value education in the family, and the active role of parents in this value education. Considering that all respondents are from the same educational institution, it is assumed that all respondents received the same level of education on Christian values at school. In other words, value/religion education at school is treated as a constant, while value/religion education in the family as a variable that distinguishes one respondent from the others. 4. Prepare a descriptive analysis of the presence or absence of book discussion forums in the respondents' family and school. It is to examine how respondents overcome challenges they may face in understanding the Harry Potter texts, with whom respondents share the excitement about what they find in the text, as well as who influences respondents' understanding of the text. 5. Take note of any other additional information about the respondents found in the interview. 6. Conduct a descriptive analysis by referring to the evidence that shows the ability of respondents to make a distinction between fantasy (fiction) and reality (fact) by using Harry Potter texts as research instruments. 7. Analyze any evidence that leads to violence and occultism. The main points to examine here are the respondents' response to spells aimed at hurting others, the respondents' statement whether they like matters related to violence, as well as the occult in the text. Besides, the respondents' perceptions of occult symbols in the Harry Potter texts and the respondents' access to websites related to Harry Potter and Wicca as well as the extent to which respondents use such access. Observation of the respondents' daily behavior is also taken into consideration. 8. Conduct a descriptive analysis of the respondents' moral value learned from the Harry Potter texts. The main points observed here are the respondents' statements regarding the contents of the Harry Potter texts in general, their statements about what makes somebody a hero, and the characters or figures in the texts that respondents consider to be heroes. Then, the analysis is on the respondents' opinions on the values they can learn from the characters in the Harry Potter texts. Not all characters in the text are discussed; only characters who take an essential role in the whole story are discussed. 9. From all the data, a summary of respondents'profiles is compiled to see the extent to which the Harry Potter texts influence respondents in distinguishing between fiction and fact, causing respondents to become violent or sympathetic to the occult, and the extent to which the Harry Potter texts inspire moral/noble values to respondents.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The table below shows a summary of the data analysis. From the analysis of the results, all respondents aged 11-13 years were able to distinguish between fiction and fact. All respondents were able to sort out which of the Harry Potter texts were truly real and which were only imaginary.
Research shows that four out of five respondents admit to having tried at least one spell from the Harry Potter texts even though they had previously suspected that the spells in the Harry Potter texts werenot real. According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, this is something normal because children in the concrete operational and formal operational stages generally show a remarkable capacity in logical reasoning and hypothetical reasoning. It means, with their reasoning skills, children form hypotheses about spells and test spells, then draw conclusions from the results of these experiments.
Secondly, based on research conducted on the five respondents, no signs of a tendency towards occultism and violence are found. In both male respondents, namely R3 and R5, as is usually the case with boys, they prefer things that are more vulgar such as fighting scenes. However, there is no indication that both male and female respondents become violent after reading the Harry Potter texts. Likewise, there are no indications that the respondents know the occult. It is in agreement with Matlin's concept of perception, the inability of respondents to recognize this kind of occult symbol means that respondents do not have any background knowledge or pre-conception about the occult. As a result, respondents cannot interpret occult symbols even if they are in the Harry Potter texts. Thus, the concern that Harry Potter texts cause a tendency to Wicca and occultism to their readers is not proven in this research so far.
Thirdly, another component that has significant influences is the age of the respondent. Age affects the ability to comprehend the reading content and the respondent's maturity in responding to the texts, both in reasoning capability when making a distinction between fiction and fact and in understanding moral values.
Fourth, the availability of a forum that facilitates text discussion also has a more or less substantial influence on the understanding of the morals carried by the texts, as demonstrated by Respondent 1, who has such a forum in her family.
Fifth, this study has also found that the level of respondents' religiosity is directly proportional to their ability to identify moral values in the Harry Potter texts. Respondents with a high religious background are better able to automatically transfer the values of their religion when finding the moral in the texts.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Conclusions
This study has found no strong evidence that the Harry Potter texts influence respondents to be sympathetic to the occult or to be violent. Jacques Derrida, in his deconstruction theory, said that a text is autonomous from its author. The writer is said to be dead, so he does not have the power to direct the interpretations of his readers. In other words, readers can interpret a text freely without having to refer to the author. In connection with this research, even if Rowling as the text writer includes elements of moral values of a particular religion or anyoccult elements, still Rowling cannot dictate the text reader to follow what she wrote.
This study has found that although respondents from both high and low religious backgrounds were able to identify moral values in the Harry Potter text, all respondents were not yet able to draw an analogy nor an allegory between the values of the text and their religion. The five respondents still thought in compartments; the Harry Potter texts and moral teachings in their religion or key figures in their lives were in different boxes. All respondents who were Christians were able to mention that the Harry Potter texts contained the values of love, sacrifice, self-control, selflessness, and integrity. Those are critical values in Christianity. None of the respondents, however, was able to draw an analogy between the text values and their religious values, even when given triggers. Only R5 could draw an analogy and make transfers.
Other interesting findings are related to the values identified by respondents to describe the characters in the text. Three respondents who were still in elementary school (R2, R3, and R4) mentioned many values related to the attributes of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Learner Profile, the international program implemented in the school when the study was conducted.

Suggestions
Lately, student-centered learning has gained more and more attention. Constructivist methods in which learners explore and construct their own learning (self-construction of the meaning) are increasingly recognized as more effective learning methods because learning is more meaningful for the learners.
Likewise, moral value learning is not effective if it is through a teacher-centered method. Moral values taught through a teacher-centered approach make them a set of memorized packages that are unmeaningful to the learners. On the other hand, if moral value learning involves learners actively seeking, analyzing, and constructing meaning from their prior knowledge and new information, then surely the learning will be more engaging, challenging, and, most importantly, meaningful.
The stages of preparing for moral value learning through a constructivist approach are as follows: 1. Text selection The selection of texts can be by a teacher/parent or an adult supervisor or by the learners themselves.

Text reading
Text can be read outside the classroom (as home reading) so as not to take up class time too much. If the entire class reads the same text, the teacher can facilitate by setting a reading schedule/target and dividing the text into some sections for more effective discussions.

Text discussion
This part is an essential part of the whole process. The teacher/parent/adult supervisor can facilitate the learning of moral values by providing critical and open-ended questions. If learners in a class read different books, teachers' questions can be more generic, such as: a. Describe the main character. b. What can you learn from the antagonist? c. What can you learn from the protagonist?
Discussions can be in small groups with 3-4 students in a group, or a large group with the whole class discussing a subject. Small group discussions provide more opportunities for each learner to be more actively involved, while large group discussion can be used to clarify and reconfirm the learners' perceptions.
To ensure that each group member is active in small group discussions, teachers can monitor the students' participation in group discussions by drawing a diagram showing student interactions.
an example of an interaction diagram Student A gives their opinions to Students B, C, and D. Student B gives his opinion to Students C and D. Student C does not give any comments. Student D gives his opinion to Student C.

Reflection
After the group discussion, each student has the opportunity to reflect on the moral values of the text for himself personally. It can be a written or oral assignment.