TEACHERS PERSPECTIVE CONCERNING MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION IN SURAKARTA CITY, INDONESIA

Abstract

Indonesia is an island country with a diversity of cultures, races, tribes, beliefs, religions, and languages that needs multicultural education. Multicultural education is an education system that recognizes and respects the diversity of cultures, races, religions and social backgrounds of students. This paper discusses the teachers’ perspective concerning multicultural education in Indonesia. The research was conducted in Surakarta City, Central Java which is inhabited by multicultural people. There were 55 teachers with more than five years of work experience giving their perspectives. Data were collected by observation and in-depth interviews. The results showed that the teachers’ perspective concerning multicultural education is divided into five aspects, namely: (1) knowledge, (2) attitudes, (3) policies, (4) obstacles, and (5) reinforcement. Not all teachers understand the concept of multicultural education. Basically the teacher agrees to the implementation of multicultural education because Indonesia is a multicultural country. Government policies have supported the implementation of multicultural education. The obstacle to multicultural education is the low awareness of students about respect for diversity. Strengthening multicultural education can be done by increasing teachers' knowledge about multicultural education and students' insights about diversity. The results of this research are important for government consideration in taking policy on multiculturalism education. 

Keywords—Teacher, Perspective, Multicultural Education.