Listening to the voices of children, parents, and teachers about children’s school life: promoting children’s wellbeing in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

© 2018 Dr. Theresia Novi Poespita CandraBackground. This thesis reports on a study to identify the experiences of children at school and to develop a school model that promotes children’s wellbeing in Indonesia. This study is significant for two important reasons. The first is that the link between children’s school life and wellbeing in Indonesia appears to have received little interest from researchers, despite children’s mental health and education both being significant factors influencing the quality of future generations of nations. Therefore, developing a school model that potentially promotes children’s wellbeing would increase the understanding that schools as educational institutions have significant responsibility for children’s wellbeing. The second is that a greater understanding of the responsibility of promoting will enable more strategic formulation and implementation of mental health promotion for young generation within Indonesia. The aims of the study. The first aim is to identify positive and negative experiences of school life in Indonesia. Second, it is to develop a model/concept of a school that potentially promotes children’s wellbeing within Indonesia context Methods. This study consists of two questions. Question 1 identifies the positive and negative experiences of children’s school life from the perspective of parents, teachers, and children. Question 2 develops a school model that potentially promotes children’s wellbeing. The participants were thirty primary students, thirty primary teachers and thirty parents from three types of schools (public, private and Islamic school). The study was conducted in Yogyakarta in 2014. Data were collected using focus group discussions based on creative activities (photovoice, art, and drawing). For question 1, data were analyzed using content analysis, and for question 2, a grounded analysis was used to analyze the data. Results. The findings - question 1. This study found that positive experiences of children’s school life in Yogyakarta are associated with: good facilities and infrastructure, innovative learning methods, good quality of teachers, good friends, sports activities, art, and cultural activities, fun classroom circumstances, fun school activities, extra curriculum activities, and subject lesson. All of the positive experiences found in the Indonesian context have been identified by research conducted in other contexts. However, this study specifically found that in Indonesia good infrastructure and facilities are significant factors for children to have positive experiences at school. This study also found the negative experiences in school life were associated with: poor facilities/infrastructures, negative learning circumstances and neighborhood, low-quality teachers, bad friends, negative children’s behaviors, conventional learning methods, uninteresting subject lesson, ghosts at school, and final national examination (UAN). Interestingly, ghosts at school and national final examination were findings that differed from previous research. In this thesis, I discussed these two factors in the Indonesian context. The finding of this study is significant for raising awareness of all educational stakeholders to know that children’s experiences of school life are valuable for understanding the factors that impact children engagement and disengagement in school. In addition, providing information about experiences from children themselves, which has never been acknowledged before in the Indonesia education system, supports school leaders and policymakers in Indonesia to improve the quality of education that enables the engagement of students in learning processes at school. The findings - question 2. The model is based on two main Indonesian values namely kekeluargaan (kinship) and gotong-royong (communal works/mutual aids). These values underline the whole school model with the aim to promote children’s wellbeing. Kekeluargaan (kinship) is defined as “a value believing that school community is a part of nation’s family and all members in the school (student, teachers, parents) are tied as a family. “ The relationship among teachers, students, and parents in Indonesia is more than ‘a professional relationship’, but more as a family. As a family, they should work together, help and support each other. In the Indonesian culture, it is called gotong royong (communal work/mutual aids). So, the definition of gotong royong is “a value believing that as a family, all members of the school should help and support each other as well as work together to solve personal, school and social problems.” These two values influence Indonesian behaviour and culture including school culture. The values of the model underlie the principles of the school model. There are five principles that should be included in the model, those are positive learning circumstances, children’s engagement, parent and community involvement, cultural and real-life learning, and social and emotional learning. In other words, schools in Indonesia should be committed to extending their role in promoting children’s wellbeing to influence the school’s culture based on these five principles. In order to effectively implement the principles that are strongly influenced by the nation’s basic values, schools may use some strategies suggested in the model. Four strategies offered within the model are leadership and management, collaboration and partnership, school’s curriculum and school activities (either extra or non-curriculum activities). Finally, the outcome of the school model is health, safety, friendly, respectful, joyful, creative and challenging learning, and connected to society