Reading Intersectionally: What Harry Potter Reveals About Power and Privilege and How it Effects Young Audiences

Abstract

As a key medium of children's development, children's books are instrumental in the ways children understand the world around them. However, the backgrounds depicted in a lot of children's media either do not include the experiences of marginalized identities, or the inclusion of these diverse backgrounds is merely ornamental and does not explore the full nuance of life as a marginalized person. In this essay, I wish to draw the distinction between intersectionality and diversity through the lens of children's media. I am defining the differences in the understanding that intersectionality is about how we understand and power is interpreted across the social divisions of oppression in society while diversity or diversity as a concept is oftentimes used as a superficial remedy for conversations surrounding topics of race and identity.