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Qoyyimah, Uswatun(2016)Curriculum recontextualisation in privileged and underprivileged schoolsin Indonesia: Different working conditions different discretion. InSriwijaya University Learning and Education International Conference,2016-10-07 - 2016-10-09. (Unpublished)

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Curriculum recontextualisation in privileged and underprivileged

schools in Indonesia: different working conditions different discretion

Abstract

This paper presents a study on how teachers with different working conditions

respond to the character education policy issued by the Indonesian government

and how the teachers adapt the curriculum into school and classroom context.

Teachers’ response to policy and their adaptation in classes might mitigate

teachers’ dilemmas and require them to resolve the dilemmas. Bernstein’

concept of recontextualisation and an elaborated theoretical perspective for

understanding teachers’ professional dilemmas will be presented to reveal

whether teachers working in privileged and unprivileged schools display

consistency in their patterns of resolution of difficulties in curriculum

implementation. This study involves three state junior high schools and three

Islamic junior high schools in East Java that reflect privileged and

underprivileged schools respectively. Nine teachers working in the two sectors

were interviewed, and their classes were observed to explore their experiences

when implementing the character education policy in Indonesia. The result

suggests that the two different groups of teachers reported different dilemmas and

therefore different resolutions. Although any decision taken by the teachers is

considered as their attempt to act for the best, this paper also suggests that

systemic investment needs to be developed in all sectors to aid curriculum

implementation.

Keywords: curriculum reform, dilemmatic space, EFL teachers, professional

identity, recontextualisation.

Introduction: Curricular reforms in Indonesia

Curricular reform is an attempt to improve the quality of educational outcomes. At its

most simple, it is ‘hope, of course, that a change of goals, contents, and of the ways and

means will enhance teaching somehow and in some way’ (Hopmann 2003, 459). In this

sense, reform of the school curriculum is ‘widely sought as a key instrument of

educational change’ (Mcculloch 2005, 169). It also leads to new challenges in teachers’

work lives (Lai 2010), teacher education (Perez 2005), school leadership (Niesche and

Jorgensen 2010), and even school buildings (ScottWatson 2008). In the implementation

of the curriculum reform, the hopes and challenges teachers have to face might

engender either enthusiasm or resistance in their professional practice (Maguire, Ball,

and Braun 2010; Stavrou 2009).

In Indonesia, the school-based curriculum was introduced to address schools’

particular contexts and needs. With this curriculum, the central education authority

offers a brief outline of competency and content standards, and requiring schools to

develop subject curricula such as formulating learning objectives, selecting content, and

developing teaching strategies as well as learning evaluation (Parker and Raihani 2011).

The central authority no longer provided teaching materials. It required teachers to

prepare and select their teaching materials to meet school values and student needs.

Hence, the school-based curriculum offered teachers a higher degree of freedom since it

enabled teachers to select and prioritise curricular content (Mangali and Hamdan 2016;

Ko, Cheng and Lee 2016).

While the school-based curriculum was underway, the character education

policy was introduced. With this policy, teachers are required to integrate the eighteen

values in their teaching syllabus and incorporate these values into their lessons

(Kemediknas 2011). The stipulated values include such as religiosity, honesty,

discipline, tolerance, creative, democratic, curiosity, nationalism, appreciative, and

social awareness. As long as the Eeducational Boards incorporate the character

education policy within the school-based curriculum, they allowed teachers to prioritise

amongst these values that are suitable the school context (Qoyyimah 2016; Kemediknas

2011).

Besides the eighteen values, each school could develop the values reflecting its

community’s expectation. Hence, the coexistence of the school-based curriculum and

the character education policy poses an interesting empirical question for teachers’

professionalism in curriculum implementation.

The nature of curriculum reform

Reform in the curriculum has an influence on teachers’ professionalism. In this paper,

Bernstein’s (2000) concepts of classification and framing are applied to explain the

impact of curricular reforms on teacher professionalism. Bernstein suggests that the two

concepts of classification and framing are inseparable. Classification refers to ‘a

defining attribute not of a category but of relations between categories' (Bernstein 2000,

6). Accordingly, stronger classification refers to a curriculum where ‘things must be

kept apart' while weaker classification refers to one in which ‘things must be brought

together' (Bernstein 2000, 11). In a curriculum with stronger classification, subjects are

highly differentiated and separated from the others, while in a curriculum with weaker

classification, ‘the boundaries between subjects are fragile' (Sadovnik 1991, 52).

Meanwhile, framing refers to ‘control over the selection of the communication'

including ‘who controls what', the sequence, pacing (the rate of expected acquisition),

the criteria, and ‘the control over the social base which makes this transmission

possible' (Bernstein 2000, 12). In a stronger framed curriculum, the educational

authority exerts control over curriculum implementation. Hence, teachers and schools

have less professional space to adapt or interpret their teaching materials. On the other

hand, weaker framed curriculum offers teachers more control over the curriculum

content. Teachers are given more opportunities to develop teaching materials and

choose how to teach what, such as intended in the school-based curriculum reform.

In similar vein, Macdonald (2003) outlined three models of curricular reform in

the modernist education system: top-down, bottom-up, and partnership. The top-down

model is aimed ‘to minimise the teachers’ influence on curriculum reform by

developing a tight relationship among educational objectives, curriculum content, and

assessment instruments’ (2003, 140). The purported goal of the top-down model is the

achievement of high level of accuracy between the conception and the practice of

curriculum reform. The bottom-up model advocates the central role of teachers in

curriculum reform and the need for teachers to own aspects of the change that are

sought. An example of the bottom-up model is when a curriculum locates teachers and

the school at the centre of curriculum renewal. Teachers, who in this model are

perceived as the real experts, are given more control of curriculum development. The

partnership model features ‘the collaboration across schools, teacher professional

development, community, and student input to meet local needs, systematic data

collection, monitoring, and revision’ (2003, 142).

The three models offered by MacDonald can be interpreted through Bernstein’s

concepts of stronger or weaker classification and framing. The top-down model can be

referred to as stronger framing since this model seeks to minimise teachers’ influence in

the curricular reform. Meanwhile, the bottom-up model relates to Bernstein’s notion of

weaker classification and framing. With this model, control of the curricular reform is

more distributed, and teachers are granted more professional space to design and

develop a curriculum. The partnership model could be interpreted as placed between

weak and strong classification and framing, with control shared between authorities,

community, and practitioners.

Turning to Indonesia’s case, the higher degree of professional freedom offered

by the school-based curriculum reflects Bernstein’s weaker classification of curriculum

and McDonald’s bottom-up curriculum. Through the curriculum, the government grants

teachers some control over how they implement the character education policy in

classes. To see how the curriculum work to de-professionalise or re-professionalise

teachers in Indonesia, this paper also employed other theories regarding the impact of

curriculum reform on teachers' professionalism.

Curriculum reform and teachers’ professionalism

Teacher professionalism is considered as ones’ perceptions of what make a good

teacher. It is closely linked to teachers’ sense of autonomy to make judgments and to

develop curriculum (Hargreaves and Goodson 1996; Fullan 2007), teachers’

collaboration with others and teachers’ initiative for continuous learning (Hargreaves

2016). In this way, the degree of autonomy for teachers to develop curriculum and to

make judgement would have influences on teachers’ professionalism. Where teachers

were taking initiatives, acting independently, and reflecting critically, their overall

commitment to improving teaching and learning outcomes would improve (Hargreaves,

Berry, Lai, Leung, Scott, and Stobart 2013). Therefore, teacher professionalism is

socially constructed since it is influenced by states, educational policies as well as

society (Goepel 2012).

Scholarly debates over the relationship between curricular reform and teachers’

professionalism have been developed from two different standpoints. Some critics argue

that teaching is being ‘de-professionalised’ as a result of recent conservative education

reforms, for example, a more centralised curriculum by which the authority determines

textbooks and teaching materials. Meanwhile, others characterise curricular reform as

an opportunity for ‘re-professionalisation’ since it is a process to cultivate teacher

professionalism (Whitty 2000, 282). Rather than align with either camp, this paper

assumes that whether curricular reform leads to teacher de-professionalisation or re-

professionalisation will depend on the nature of the reform and its enactment. Beyond

arguments for and against teachers' professionalism is the balance between what

Schleicher (2008, 84-85) called ‘informed prescription and informed professionalism'.

The former refers to accountability by which the state has ‘central curriculum and

evaluation systems that enable the steering of teachers' and schools' work toward

particular educational outcomes' (Luke, Woods, and Weir, 2012, 17). Meanwhile, the

latter refers to ‘schools' and teachers' relative degrees of autonomy in using professional

judgement to shape and modify curriculum and pedagogy' (Luke et al. 2012, 17). The

more autonomy the official curriculum offers, the more opportunity the teachers have to

exert their professionalism. Therefore, both clear objectives presented in official

curriculum and sufficient degrees of teacher autonomy are considered important factors

to achieve educational outcomes. Luke et al. (2012) suggest that teachers'

professionalism is enhanced through curriculum documents that are not too strictly

prescriptive. Rather, a curriculum should be a general outline of expected coverage and

standards to enable teachers to exercise their knowledge base and professionalism while

taking their students into account. Regarding teachers’ degree of freedom and

professional learning, teachers’ work is becoming re-professionalised in ways that

involve broader tasks, greater complexity, ‘more sophisticated judgment, and collective

decision making among colleagues’ (Hargreaves and Goodson 1996, 3). Meanwhile,

other parts of teachers’ work are becoming de-professionalised regarding more

pragmatic training and increased dependence on prescriptive learning outcomes.

Applying McDonald’s and Bernstein’s concepts, these arguments suggest that

weaker framing or bottom up curriculum enables teachers to exercise more

professionalism since teachers are more able to make or select their teaching materials.

Meanwhile stronger framing that describes strictly prescriptive curriculum could be

associated with de-professionalisation of teachers because it restricts their judgement,

limits their professional choices, for example by making teachers adopt official

textbooks for their teaching materials.

In terms of teachers’ practice, different framing in curriculum produces the

conditions for different curriculum recontextualisation. Bernstein defines the concept of

recontextualisation as ‘the process of delocating a discourse (manual, mental,

expressive), … taking a discourse from its original site of effectiveness and moving it to

a pedagogic site, (in which) a gap or rather a space is created’ (Bernstein 2000, 32). It

refers to the relational processes of selecting and moving knowledge from one context

to another (Parlo, Thomas. Harris 2013). Under this definition, there is always a degree

of space in pedagogy for teachers to exercise judgement. However, with stronger

classification and framing of curriculum, the potential gap or space will be reduced and

therefore, space for teachers’ professional judgement and adaptation is limited. On the

other hand, with a weaker framing of curriculum, the gap could be wider and offer more

potential for teachers’ recontextualisation to vary.

The problem is that Schleicher’s recommended balance for informed

prescription relies on informed professionalism. Any autonomy that curricular reform

offers will necessarily need ‘teachers’ professional capacity to locally interpret, adapt

and adjust curriculum content, pacing, presentation, interaction and structure to

particular institutional, community settings and student cohort characteristics’ (Luke et

al. 2012, 19). In other words, the informed prescription that can enhance teachers’

professionalism will not work effectively in a situation in which teachers do not have

such capacity or confidence. Hence, this condition creates a chicken-or-egg dilemma to

be resolved around which comes first - teachers’ professionalism, or curricular reform

that allows room for it?

The school-based curriculum that resonated with informed professionalism

allowed Indonesian teachers to have more autonomy to develop curriculum in

accordance with the school context. Therefore, with such weaker framed curriculum and

informed professionalism, Indonesian teachers were potentially re-professionalised. The

problem is this autonomy will mean nothing for teachers if they do not have the

capacity to interpret, adapt and adjust curriculum content as intended.

Research in EFL teachers’ professionalism in Indonesia has been conducted

previously (see Chen, 2011; Yuwono and Harbon 2010; Ramli 2010; Sumintono and

Raihani 2010). Despite using theories regarding the degree autonomy on

professionalism, Yuwono and Harbon (2010) found that teachers’ professionalism in

Indonesia relied on financial rewards. The low financial reward has adverse

consequences of Indonesian teachers’ professionalism and their further professional

development. These teachers ended up with taking a second job or teaching many

hours, which restricts time and energy for professional learning and professional

discussion with their colleagues.

This research was to understand more deeply the phenomenon of teachers’

professionalism in Indonesia. More particularly, it presents how Indonesian teachers

working in different sectors exercised degrees of professionalism in the conditions

created by the school-based curriculum when implementing the character education

policy. The following section describes teaching workforce in Indonesia and explains

how these teachers are classified and stratified.

Teaching workforce

Indonesia has 2,783,321 teachers (Dasuki 2009) working in more than 250,000

schools (The World Bank 2010). Regarding employment status, these teachers are

grouped into two categories: civil servant and non-civil servant teachers (Chen 2011),

with 1,528,472 and 1,254,849 teachers in these categories respectively (Dasuki 2009).

Civil servant teachers mostly work in public schools and are employed by the

government after they have successfully passed the national selection exam and

recruitment process (Ramli 2010). Meanwhile, non-civil servant teachers who mostly

work in private schools are employed by private schools. In this paper, the term ‘private

school’ will refer to a school with ‘non-government ownership, predominantly non-

government financing and the direct authority to employ teachers’ (Bangay 2005, 170).

Previous studies outlined several characteristics of Indonesian private schools.

Regarding teaching staff, the financial limitations of private schools typically produce a

‘lack of full-time trained teachers’ and a reliance on part-time teachers (Bangay 2005,

170). Because of the financial limitation, private school teachers receive less

opportunity to access professional learning (Qoyyimah 2015). Besides, the common

issue stemming from the differences between the state school teachers and private

school teachers is the gap between their salaries. Private school teachers typically

receive a third the salary of civil servant teachers (Sumintono and Raihani 2010;

Yuwono and Harbon 2010). In this way, the salary of private school teachers is much

lower than that of the state school teachers.

Therefore, Indonesian educational systems are reinforced by the stratification in

the teaching workforce, with its distinction between civil servant and non-civil servant

teachers who work in state schools and private schools respectively. Instead of civil and

non-civil servant teachers, this paper will use the terms ‘state school teachers’ and

‘private school teachers’ to reflect their working condition. Despite a huge number of

teachers in Indonesia, this study presents data taken from particular sites of East Java,

Indonesia. It involves teachers working in state secondary schools and private

secondary schools. More particularly, this paper presents how the two different groups

of teachers recontextualise the official curricular reforms.

Research participants and data collections

This empirical study was designed as a qualitative research within the constructivist-

interpretive paradigm explicated by Denzin and Lincoln (2003, 2011). This was

expected to bear on teachers’ reaction to, and comfort with, the new conditions of

increased professionalism fostered through the school-based curriculum and character

education policy.

The data was taken from the interviews and class observation. The interview

was aimed at understanding the lived experience of the teacher and construing the

meaning made of that experience (Seidman 2007). Therefore, semi-structured interview

protocol (Witzel and Reiter 2012) was prepared in advance. Meanwhile, classroom

observation was used to document the actions and interactions of the teachers in their

classrooms. The disguised observation was conducted in this study (Angrosino and

Rosenberg 2011; Angrosino 2016). Classes were audio-recorded, and detailed field

notes were kept to track topics taught by teachers, to describe the class activities

(Lemke 1993) and to document teachers' treatment of character education policy.

The participants were allocated pseudonyms arranged in alphabetical order. A,

B, C and D were state school teachers while E, F, G, H, and I were private schools. The

semi-structured interviews were conducted twice with each teacher. The first interviews

explored their thoughts and understanding about the particular curricular reforms and

their professional development opportunities regarding the character education reform

within the school-based curriculum. Meanwhile, the second interviews captured their

accounts of observed classroom events. Classroom observations were conducted three

times for each teacher.

Analysis

This section comprises two sub-sections of analysis. The first sub-section

presents data analysis regarding teachers’ reports on their professional learning

opportunities. The second subsection is an analysis on how the two groups of teachers

expressed and exercised their professionalism in recontextualising character education.

Different status, different learning opportunities

Two groups of teachers in this study reported learning opportunities to resource and to

enhance their professionalism. State school teachers described plentiful and systematic

professional learning programs. In the excerpt below, B explained the wide ranges of

opportunities she as a state teacher had:

B: ... I was trained in Jakarta for about 15 days. Then when I went back to my

district, I was required to disseminate the training materials to my colleagues. The

dissemination program was organised by the Educational Board in the district.

Teachers from state schools were invited.

Researcher: Why were you appointed to be a trainer of teachers? What were the

criteria for being selected?

B: Because I had passed the examination of teachers' competence, that's it.

Researcher: How did you disseminate the training materials? Did you need to meet

with other teachers once a week?

B: Yes, I did in the ‘MGMP’ [Teacher Working Group] meetings. MGMP

meetings are organized by Educational Board of this municipality. ... In this

municipality, there are three cohorts of ‘MGMP' for English for state schools.

Teachers were examined and ranked before they are classified into groups.

The MGMP or Teacher Working Group (TWG) through which B could obtain

and then disseminate the training materials was organized by the National and Regional

Educational Board. As she mentioned, state school teachers were invited to the

meetings. In other words, TWG served as a systemic means for the government to

enhance and support teachers' professionalism. B reports that the Educational Board

had devised a systematic approach to supporting teachers' professional learning. Before

the regular meetings of the English TWG, teachers were ranked, grouped and selected.

The results of the selection process were used to place teachers in particular cohorts.

From B's account, the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) made systematic

attempts to enhance teachers' professionalism that included processes by which teachers

were assessed, ranked and briefed.

Besides such routine meetings, state school teachers also had an opportunity to

attend national training sessions that were conducted by the central authority. This can

be seen from B's account of her involvement in training sessions in Jakarta, the capital

city of Indonesia, which required her to travel around 1000 kilometres from her

hometown. This sort of prestigious opportunity was only attended by those who were

shortlisted and thus was restricted to civil-servant teachers who had passed admission

tests. By B’s accounts, a systematic investment in state school teachers' professionalism

was conducted by the government through particular procedures to rank, select and

assess teachers to attend provincial and national training. Most importantly, by her

report these greater opportunities strengthened the state teachers' position as curriculum

mediators regarding their role in disseminating professional knowledge of the new

reforms.

Turning to the private school teacher, there was only limited opportunity to

access professional learning. The private school teachers reported insufficient

professional learning to prepare them for the curricular reforms. G explains this

situation:

G: We had English teachers’ MGMP [Teacher Working Group] meetings with

teachers from the state school. I am not sure each Tuesday or Wednesday ... The

last meeting of English teachers’ MGMP I attended was the one in 2008. I found it

was useful as it trained me to arrange exam materials, and it let me know any

reforms issued. Unfortunately, the organizer was not really consistent with the

scheduling. That’s why I hesitated to go, better for me to teach in the classroom

instead of attending such meeting.

Researcher: How did you know the values in character education offered by

Educational Board?

G: At first I knew from my colleagues who work in state schools. He brought a

model of the syllabus from the Department of Education in the district. But I don’t

know about the list of values. Maybe because it is not published well or maybe, I

do not really care about that.

G’s reported far less access to professional development than B. By G’s report,

she did not attend any English TWG meeting for many years. The last meeting she

attended was in 2008, three years before the character education policy was issued. She

mentioned an organizer, but it was not clear what institution organized it –whether it

was the Department of Education or someone else. In contrast to the reports of the

regular and systematic approach for state school teachers, G considered the meeting

organisers for private school teachers to be less consistent. The inconsistent schedule

had made this teacher lost interest in the meetings.

Given the fact that G’s last meeting with her counterparts in MGMP was three

years before the character education policy was issued, G had never been officially

briefed on what the policy required of her. She did not understand the detailed list of

values offered by the Education Board since she had not attended any such formal

induction about the character education reform. G reported that she only understood

how to implement the character education policy after learning from her colleagues’

lesson plan. Hence, her account suggests that neither the Department of Education nor

her school principal planned systematic professional development for the private school

teachers.

These contrasting stories of B and G were typical across my sample. Regarding

plenty of professional learning, the state school teachers had similar stories to B.

Meanwhile, all the teachers from private schools have similar experience with G who

reported much less experience of professional learning.

Different status, different recontextualisation models

The interviews and observations with the teachers indicated that the different

group of teachers tended to implement the character education policy differently. This

section presents data to exemplify the different recontextualisation practices between

the state school teachers and private school teachers.

The interview data and observations indicated that most of the state school

teachers coped well with the reforms and met the administrative requirements. The

extract from C below shows that the state school teachers understood there to be

different versions of character education to implement:

C: Apart from the version requiring us to insert values in the learning

objectives, there are many other versions of its implementation. The second version

doesn’t require teachers to put values in the learning objectives but to write the

values in the process of teaching and learning. For example, greeting and praying

before starting English lessons reflects the religious value. Then, by group

discussion, students learn the ‘cooperation’ value. ... Then the third version is a bit

challenging for us: the value must emerge in the lesson plan from its learning

objectives to assessment. This version does not recommend that teachers introduce

many values, but at least two values. I prefer to choose the easiest one, so we do

not need to write detailed explanations about the values we want to teach. For

example, without describing ‘religiosity’ in detail, I just accustom students to

greet and pray before we start. …

C accounted for a number of different versions of enacted character education,

noting which one fitted with her and which ones did not. By her account, there were

three versions that she understood from training sessions. State school teachers

demonstrated a sophisticated understanding about different versions of its possible

implementation and had the confidence to decide what best suited her EFL classes.

In addition to the interview data, Citra was observed to apply more versions in

her lesson plan although she invoked the first version as the easiest version. She

applied the first version in her lesson plans for Class 1 and Class 2, as well as

implementing ‘the third version,’ the version she mentioned as the most challenging

version. Different versions offer different models of character education

implementation.

State school teachers also suggest that they can become the model for her

students. This can be seen from B’s account in the excerpt below:

B: ... I think, the most effective way of educating and developing students'

morality is how the teacher becomes a model for them. How I should behave at

school, and what I should do in the classroom. Because now giving an only speech

is not really effective to develop students' behaviour. Modelling is important

B reported her intention that whatever she did in classes, including how she

organised the EFL activities, would become a value modelling for her students. In this

way, B suggests that she taught the values implicitly through teaching and learning

activities that were relevant to her chosen values.

Although state school teachers were critical of the multiple versions of character

education in its administrative issues, they could decide to adopt the version that was

deemed the best fit with her professional sensibilities. Despite choosing the simplest

version in order to meet the administrative requirement of nominating values, they were

able to implement the character education policy in many ways, including by modelling

the values. They also taught other values beyond those inserted into their lesson plan

(Qoyyimah 2016).

Across the sample, the government supports for professional learning benefited

state school teachers. These teachers became more aware of the principles and intended

practices of the character education policy. They were able to articulate different

versions of character education in detail, including how to both model and teach the

values in classrooms. Being aware of and being able to criticise different versions of

implementation demonstrates that state school teachers had the confidence to choose

what version was deemed to be the best fit for them. This suggests they were capable of

Schleicher’s ‘informed professionalism'.

In contrast to the state school teachers, three out of five sampled private school

teachers were observed to leave the character education space empty in their lesson

plans. Therefore, no trace of the character education reform was evident in these

teachers’ lesson plans. To explore the teachers’ thinking behind their choice to ignore

these administrative requirements, I asked them about this in the second interview. G

reported her reasons:

Researcher: I didn’t see you insert any value in your lesson plan. What’s your

thinking behind your action?

G: I did not insert any value in my lesson plan. I might have forgotten this. I will

edit this later. I just copied the lesson plan from a certain source.

Although G’s previous account showed that she understood the administrative

requirements of the character education policy, she reported in the above excerpt that

she knew she had not met the character education requirement. For that reason, she

blamed herself for being ignorant, as well as blamed the authorities who did not

adequately publicise the policy, as she said in the previous excerpt, ‘Maybe it is not

published well, or maybe I do not care about that.' Learning from her account, this also

can be concluded that her individual investment toward professional learning is

questionable.

More importantly, the fact that G copied another teacher’s lesson plan for her

classroom does not reflect the philosophy of school-based curriculum. As outlined

before, school-based curriculum required teachers to plan their lesson suitable with the

school’s local context and priorities. If teachers use lesson plans made by other teachers

in different schools, the intent of this reform is lost. This kind of practice can be

considered a problematic version of curriculum recontextualisation in terms of its

absence of the intended curriculum.

In addition to the two contrasting curriculum developer and curriculum absence,

there were teachers who implemented the policy just to meet the administrative

requirement. Despite their understanding of the character education policy, these

teachers hardly implemented the policy in their classes. F, for example, the most senior

teaching staff member among the private school teachers, described the character

education policy as follows:

Researcher: How would you describe the current character education curriculum?

F: I really agree with the character education reform. Administratively, I only write

the values in the lesson plan. That's what I understood. There are 18

character/values. Teachers need to choose the values that are suitable for teaching

materials. ... Anyway, it is for administrative compliance only.

In this excerpt, F spoke about his positive response towards the character

education policy. He then reduced the character education policy to a compliance

measure, as can be seen from his mention of ‘only adding’ and ‘only writing’ the values

in the existing lesson plans. Also, his last sentence implied that he approached the

implementation of the character education policy as only a matter of administrative

compliance.

Discussion

The teachers profiled above demonstrated marked differences in their

recontextualisation of the curricular reforms. Across the sample of nine teachers, three

different models of recontextualisation were identified: curriculum developer;

curriculum servant; and curriculum absence. The models of recontextualisation are

hierarchically ranked in terms of teachers’ professional engagement with the reform. In

this paper, teachers who were identified as curriculum developers are those who

understood the policy, met the administrative requirements, and consistently modelled

or taught the nominated values in classes. Teacher B and C profiled above exemplifies

this model. Meanwhile, those who are categorised as curriculum servants only sought to

meet the administrative requirement. The last category, the curriculum absence,

describes those who did not meet the administrative requirement and provided no

evidence of nominating values, teaching or modelling them in classes. Teacher G

exemplifies this category. Figure 1 illustrates the how the sampled teachers aligned with

these recontextualisation models:

<<Insert Figure 1>>

Figure 1. The sample distribution across recontextualization models

Figure 1 shows how the two groups of teachers in the sample were differently

distributed according to their engagement with, and recontextualisation of, the character

education policy. Most of the state school teachers met the requirement for the

curriculum developer recontextualisation while the private school teachers were

distributed more towards the curriculum absence model. Most state teachers

implemented the reform based on the richer versions endorsed by the Educational

Board. Meanwhile, others left the policy unimplemented in their classrooms since they

did not have access to professional learning programs. Therefore, this study suggests

that state school teachers are capable of ‘informed professionalism’ since they were

Private Islamic school teachers

B CD A

E F

G H I

State school teachers

Curriculum developers

Curriculum servants

Curriculum absences

equipped to exploit the higher degree of freedom offered by the school-based

curriculum as an opportunity to exert their professionalism.

Regarding weaker/stronger framing curricular reform and teachers’

professionalism, this study indicates that the weaker framing of school-based

curriculum has mostly served to re-professionalise one category of well-resourced

teachers in the stratified workforce but also served to de-professionalise the other less

resourced category. Groups of teachers with plenty of government investment in their

professional learning took the weaker framing of the school-based curriculum as an

opportunity to develop teaching materials in accordance with school values and

classroom characteristics. The other group of teachers who lacked government support

and individual investment in professional learning did not understand the weaker frame

as an opportunity to develop teaching materials. Most of the private school teachers did

not implement the policy. Their English lesson plans did not nominate any of the

stipulated values.

Learning from the teachers’ accounts and classroom observation, this paper

suggests the system’s investment was the most influential factor enabling teachers’

confidence in recontextualisation, and, therefore, promoting teacher professionalism as

intended under the school-based curriculum. Figure 2 visually represents the

significance of the system’s investment to enhance teachers’ professionalism.

System’s investment for

state school teachers

E F

G H

S t ’ i t t

B C

Curriculum developer

Curriculum servant

Curriculum absence

I

D

A

Figure 2: Systemic investment and recontextualization models

In this study teachers’ professionalism was indicated in their modes of

recontextualisation. The three recontextualising models (curriculum developer,

curriculum servant, and curriculum absence) are hierarchically ranked concerning their

degrees of professionalism. The bigger grey arrows represent the level of systemic

investment, including school support to assist teachers in implementing the curricular

reforms. The black arrows represent each teacher’s rank within the recontextualisation

models (the letter labels refer to teachers’ pseudonym).

Figure 2 captures how the system’s investment has enabled the professional

practice of all the state school teachers to move beyond the realm of curriculum

absence. Three of the four state school teachers exhibited the highest rank of

recontextualisation. In contrast, the practice of three out of the five teachers in private

schools fell in the domain of curriculum absence. No private school teacher in this study

was observed to practise in the most professionalised of recontextualisation models

(curriculum developer).

Although theories of curricular reform suggest that weaker framing of curricular

reform supports informed professionalism that could reprofessionalise teachers, this

study has demonstrated different polarized outcomes in the different workforce

conditions in Indonesia. Teachers will approach the higher degree of freedom to

recontextualise as an advantage or a challenge depending on their experience and

support. In this study, teachers who had the privilege of government investment

displayed higher motivation to learn about the reform and implement it. When they had

neither support (e.g. from the government, school organization) nor the individual

motivation to pursue the necessary professional development, their recontextualisations

amounted to curriculum absence. Yet, government's investment regarding teachers'

professional learning offers perhaps the most influential means to re-professionalise a

teaching workforce.

Conclusion

This empirical study talks back to literature around teacher professionalism that

assumes a well-resourced and qualified workforce. Curricular reform across vast

stratified systems is more complex and suggests that the same curricular reform can

have contradictory and polarising effects on teachers in different structural positions.

This, in turn, suggests an exponential effect in exacerbating the educational disparities

for students.

All state school teachers in the sample reported a range of professional learning

opportunities to help them meet the reforms' requirements. On the other hand, most of

the private school teachers left the character education policy unimplemented. Teachers’

reflections on this professional space gave a sense of the difference in professional

learning opportunities between state and private school teachers that served to

exacerbate the difference in professional status. On this point, weakly framed school-

based curriculum did not serve to re-professionalise the private teachers. The private

school teachers who had not been briefed about the reform were not prepared for it. As

a consequence, the different learning opportunity leads to the different degrees of

capacity to locally interpret, adapt and adjust curriculum content, pacing, presentation in

agreement with the school context.

Hence, this study suggests that professionalism is not personal domain of

teachers. Professional learning opportunities are the necessary conditions that must be

in place to realize a productive balance between informed prescription and informed

professionalism. In other words, while offering teachers higher degrees of autonomy to

use their professional judgement to shape and modify curriculum and pedagogy, the

Indonesian government should equip all teachers with systematic preparation to

implement its central curriculum reform. The government should also support teachers’

and schools’ to collaborate with their counterparts through MGMP or Teacher Working

Group, and enhance teachers to work toward particular educational outcomes.

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