CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING: What Every Elementary School Teacher Should Know

Indonesia is one of the multicultural country in the world. As the consequence Indonesia has responsibility to preserve its culture. More than that, Indonesia also has responsibility to embed mutual respect among these cultures, not only mutual respect among local cultures but also mutual respect for the cultures of other nations. The way to embed mutual respect among different cultures should be implemented since early age. Children age is the basic period to build human character. Social science, as the study of society and manner on how people behave and influence other people, has power to build its mutual respect. But the problem is that the intensions to plant mutual respect often fall short due to teachers have inadequate knowledge about cultures, the target of the culture and the way to integrate culture in primary school education. This paper provides an overview on some basic concept of Cross Cultural Understanding (CCU) and offers practical ways to Integrate Cross Cultural Understanding (CCU) into social science in primary school. Keywords: Cross Cultural Understanding, Social Science, Elementary School Theme: Multicultural Educatio