The Self in Struggle: Indonesian Secondary School Teachers’ Multiplicity of Voices amidst Competing Discourses of Tolerance

Abstract

The issue of tolerance has a long history as a contentious topic in Indonesian educational policy. The emergence of religious, ethnic-based conflict and violence in several regions in the last two decades has raised some questions about Indonesia’s identity as a moderate and tolerant society. Amidst the increasing incidents of intolerance, the civil society movement called for the nation to revive local wisdom and values of tolerance as catalysts for the unity of Indonesia’s multicultural society. In response to the call, the government re-introduced character or moral education into the school curriculum at primary and secondary levels to promote local wisdom and the values of tolerance – perceived to be on a declining trend in society. The policy was met with skepticism at best, as the inclusion and exclusion of character education have become the norm over the years under different national leadership. Educational practitioners and scholars have critiqued the limited hours dedicated to the teaching and development of students' soft skills as an indication of the government’s lack of seriousness in addressing character education vis-à-vis tolerance. Understanding the essence of tolerance, as perceived and experienced by teachers, I argue, would help formulate a policy that resonates with the true colour of realities in the local context. This research employs Ricoeur’s phenomenological approach within the qualitative research paradigm to examine tolerance as individually experienced and narrated by the teacher participants. Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, particularly his theoretical constructs of double-voicedness, ideologically becoming, agency, and heteroglossia are used to analyse the data. Ricoeur’s three levels of analysis complement the use of Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism to provide a more robust analysis. Research findings identified participants’ varied views and perceptions of tolerance. They drew on a repertoire of local wisdom and personal experience to echo their aspirations and views of tolerance, rendering their voice heteroglossic as understood within Bakhtin’s framework. The findings attest to the participants’ internal struggles in the process of ideologically becoming as they attempt to appropriate different competing discourses of tolerance. This research makes three contributions to the field of moral education. First, I propose Javanese local wisdom, “tepo sliro”, as the most genuine conception of tolerance as it transcends the superficiality of the practice of tolerance, one that is anchored in the consideration of the feelings of others as the most subtle aspect of human beings. Methodologically, my research makes useful contributions to research in the humanities and social studies regarding how we can better understand the essence of human experience and its idiosyncrasies in an increasingly complex world so as to allow for multiple perspective-taking. Lastly, it is highly recommended that the use of phenomenological research be integrated into educational policy-making processes which consider local contexts so as to promote higher levels of programme participation and ownership.