Action Research in Reading
Action Research in Reading
Action Research in Reading
Abstract
Home, school, and classroom are three different loci of learning that can operate
simultaneously to affect the development of the student reading ability. However, the
positive effects of these factors can only be optimized if home, school, and classroom
development. The effects of factors related to student, home, school, and teacher
characteristics on the reading ability of 4th grade students in Indonesia are examined.
samples show that the gender of both student and teacher has significant effects on
student reading ability, in that female students outperform males. Parents’ economic
and cultural capital also significantly influence student performance, where parents
who are university graduates, like professionals and clerical workers, are more likely
family, the use of Bahasa Indonesia at home by children prior to schooling, and
school location do not demonstrate any significant effects on student reading ability.
Some sociological explanations and policy implications are proposed in this study.
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This study examines the effects of factors related to student, home, school, and
teacher characteristics on reading ability of the 7th grade students in Bado Dangwa National
High School. The 7th graders are, according to Joncas (2007), in the process of becoming
independent readers after six years of formal instructions. It is therefore an appropriate stage
for assessing their reading ability in order to allow educators for further improvement through
educational interventions.
Home, school and classroom are three different loci of learning that can operate
together to generate effects on the development of the student reading ability. However, the
positive effects of these factors can only be optimized if home, school, and classroom have
conducive environments, which are equipped with supporting resources that are used in
able to provide such resources, it is necessary to have economic and cultural resources at
home, school, and classroom. Therefore, for instance, a school that is located in an affluent
community and attended by students from this type of community tends to have better
teaching resources and well-qualified teachers. As a result, students are more likely to have
better learning outcomes, including reading ability. However, cultural and social specificity
of a country might also make a difference in terms of learning environment and its effects on
student attainment.
This study seeks answer “what factors related to student, home, and teacher
characteristics do significantly affect the 4th grader’s reading ability? And what sociological
explanations are possible to understand the underlying meanings behind these effects?” This
Reading ability has increasingly become a very important tool to access information
and knowledge through variety of media, such as internet and newspapers. Literacy is also
strongly associated with the development of a country. A high rate of literacy often becomes
one of the most significant indicators of a country development in general. Literacy has in
addition becomes an important form of communication skill that may locate someone in the
market place, a place where life chances are determined (Weber 2006), and social mobility is
function of education (Carnoy and Levin 1986; and Bowels and Gintis 1976) in democratic
society. Thus, it is necessary to understand factors that might be associated with children
ability to read in order to be able to generate learning environment that can facilitate higher
reading attainment. This, in turn, allows policy makers to create an educational arrangement
Indonesia since 70s has given a large scale effort to increase its people reading ability
across age groups. As a result, it has succeeded to increase its population literacy rate from 50
percent in 1970 (Jalal and Sardjunani 2007) to 98.7 percent in 2004 (Unesco 2007). There is
no need to problematize this literacy rate if this high percentage is socially taken for granted.
Within this high percentage there are disparities in terms of the level of reading skill
stemming from social class differences. The reading ability of the Indonesia’s fourth graders
is also still below the average at the global level (Québec 2007). The real challenge for the
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What does standardized Bahasa Indonesia literacy mean? At the global level, it means
catching up with modernization by which human beings have been divided in two types, i.e.,
literate and non-literate (McCarty 2005). At the national level, on the other hand, Bahasa
Indonesia was selected by the national elite in 1928 to become the unifying language of the
Indonesian people who possessed about 550 indigenous languages (Arka 2007); two decades
before Indonesia proclaimed its independence from foreign imperialism in 1945. Since then,
Bahasa Indonesia had been promoted to become the official language of the newly formed
sensitive to the local languages. As a result, many of these languages have become
endangered and those who speak them have been devalued in the market. Both at the global
and national level, then, language competence may intersect with merit and privilege by
which social hierarchies are generated through education. Those who are capable of coping
with the designated standard would be counted as competent citizens, whereas those who do
Language (i.e., Bahasa Indonesia) acquisition and competence has then been
constructed to support some, while depriving others. Most likely those who have lower socio-
economic position will be excluded or ought to have extra perseverance to learn Bahasa
Indonesia to compete in job market. Otherwise, they will be labeled illiterate, even though
they speak and write in their own local languages. Thus, it is not only about how demanding
argued, but also about privileges enjoyed by the Bahasa Indonesia speakers. It is worth noting
that schooling, accessed more by the have, plays the most significant role in transmitting
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This study within its exploratory question tries to problematize the Indonesian state’s
promise of democracy for its citizens through knowledge distribution in the form of equal
reading ability. Some sociological understanding on factors affecting children reading ability
will be capitalized to generate several policy implications. Many factors at different levels of
social domains may contribute to the development of this ability, but this study will only
examine several factors associated with student, home, school and teacher characteristics.
This explicitly expresses its limitation. However, it is optimistic to reveal some significant
Educational Literature
Studies conducted on children reading ability showed that cultural capital, such as
parents’ education and occupation, had a significant role in supporting children ability to read
(Myrberg and Rosén 2008; and Mullis and Martin 2007). Parents who have higher level of
education and occupation can provide inspiring environment for their children to read by
becoming a role model for them. On the other hand, this group of parents is more likely to
have enough economic capacity to provide their children with educational resources, such as
home library. Parents can also engage children in earlier home literacy activities. Stephenson
and Georgiou (2008) argued that letter knowledge was one of the most obvious indicators of
children reading skill. This type of knowledge can be developed by engaging children in their
early age in shared book reading activities. Its effect can be maximized through more specific
activities, such as teaching letter names, sounds and printing. Other research reported that
children, on the other hand, had their own agency to develop their own literacy. Tse et al.
(2006) reported that attitude and self-concept of students in China and Hong Kong made a
difference in their reading achievement, where girls outperformed boys on these attributes.
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Students in their fourth year of formal schooling are transitioning from “learning to
read” to “reading to learn” (Mullis and Martin 2007:1) Thus, school experiences at this point,
not to undermine the enrichment effect of home environment, can play important roles.
School factors such as school environment and resources can contribute to the acquisition of
reading literacy.
Within classroom context, Perry, Hutchinson, and Thauberger (2007) argued that it
was very crucial for teachers to design literacy tasks that would allow students to be self-
regulated and independent learners. Such learners have a capacity to become more motivated
to learn because they tend to behave in a way that will optimize their learning processes and
products. In general, classroom activities are likely to have a more direct impact on students
In terms of student gender, Klecker (2006) found that differences in reading ability by
gender were consistent across grade level, where female reading achievement was higher
than male’s. Chiu and Chang (2006) argued that this discrepancy was the function of female
peer influence, where girls inclined to have more peers. Brozo (2005), on the other hand,
provided three reasons behind this variation. First, television and other popular electronic
media have genderized the way boys and girls behave and interact. Girls are assumed to
spend more time with the traditional print resouces. Second, school environemnt has been
feminized, where female teachers dominate teaching jobs at schools. Third, it is related to
student engagement in teaching process. Girls in general are more engaged and interested in
reading materials. With respect to the difference between rural and urban students, Zhang
(2006) reported that urban children in Sub-Saharan Africa outperformed their rural
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Method
Data
Data used in this study is Indonesia’s data obtained from the Progress in International
Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006.1 There were 4774 Indonesia’s fourth graders from
Hypotheses
student, school, teacher and home characteristics. While student related variables include
three variables, i.e., sex, age, and the use of Bahasa Indonesia before schooling, teacher
related variables comprise of four variables, i.e., sex, age, part or full time teachers, and
teachers’ usage of different teaching resources in their teaching. School related variables
include only one variable, i.e., school location (rural, sub-urban, and urban), whereas home
related variables consist of four variables, i.e., things owned at home, level of family
It is expected that the effect of the economic and cultural resources of parents and
teachers can provide us with findings where social class (Myrberg and Rosén 2008; Mullis et
al. 2007; and Bourdieu and Thompson 1991) and gender (Chiu and Chang 2006; Klecker
2006; and Brozo 2005) matter for student reading competence. Teacher effect, on the other
hand, is anticipated to highlight some structure of power relation within school organization
1
PIRLS is an international study of reading literacy among fourth grade students conducted by the International
Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).
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Variables
Student reading ability is used to represent reading literacy of the fourth graders.
“The ability to understand and use those written language forms required by society
and/or valued by the individual. Young readers can construct meaning from a variety
of texts. They read to learn, to participate in communities of readers in school and
everyday life, and for enjoyment” (Kennedy and Sainsbury 2007:11).
PIRLS 2006 framework defines two major aspects of students’ reading literacy, i.e.,
“Reading for literary experience and reading to acquire and use information are two
major purposes that account for the majority of reading experiences of young
children. Readers make meaning of texts in a variety of ways, depending not only on
the purpose for reading, but also on the difficulty of the text and the reader’s prior
knowledge. Therefore, there is a need to look at four processes of comprehension:
focus on and retrieve explicitly stated information; make straightforward inferences;
interpret and integrate ideas and information; and examine and evaluate content,
language, and textual elements. These processes are the basis for developing
comprehension questions in the reading assessment” (Kennedy and Sainsbury
2007:12).
In this study, the total standardized scores of students (see Table 1) available in
PIRLS 2006 database are used as a dependent variable in the analysis, representing student
B. Independent Variables
There are 11 explanatory variables (see Table 1) that would be examined in the model
of this study. Three of them are related to the student characteristics, four to teacher or
Student Related Variable: Student characteristics include student sex, age and
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DEPENDENT
1 Reading Student Reading Ability 4774 50.11 9.99 31.73 87.84
INDEPENDENT
STUDENT
2 Sex Female Student 4774 0.50 0 1
3 Age Student Age 4774 10.33 1.04 6.58 14.92
Student Age Squared 4774 107.63 19.43 43.34 222.51
Student Age Missing Values 0.3 % 4774 0.00 0 1
3 Language Language before School/Indonesian 4774 0.62 0 1
Language before School/other than 4774 0.25 0 1
Indonesian
Language before School/Missing 13 % 4774
0.13 0 1
SCHOOL
4 Location School Location Area/Rural 4774 0.16 0 1
School Location Area/Suburban 4774 0.15 0 1
School Location Area/Urban 4774 0.67 0 1
School Location Area/Missing 1% 4774
0.01 0 1
HOME
5 Resource Things at Home 4774 6.26 1.07 4 8
Things at Home/Missing 8 % 4774 0.08 0 1
6 Economy Well off Family Financially/Very 4774 0.22 0 1
Well off Family Financially/Average 4774 0.52 0 1
Well off Family Financially/Not Very Well 4774 0.20 0 1
Well off Family Financially/Missing 5% 4774
0.05 0 1
7 Parents' Parents' Highest Education Level/University 4774
0.07 0 1
Education
Parents' Highest Education Level/Post- 4774
Secondary 0.04 0 1
Parents' Highest Education Level/Upper- 4774
Secondary 0.24 0 1
Parents' Highest Education Level/Lower- 4774
Secondary 0.18 0 1
Parents' Highest Education Level/No 4774
Schooling 0.41 0 1
Parents' Highest Education Level/Missing6% 4774
0.06 0 1
continued
8
Table 1 continued
- Age: As age (min. 6.58; max. 14.92) turns out in the preliminary analysis
the assumption that student who use Bahasa Indonesia at home might
outperform those who do not use it, a variable whether students use
suburban schools have better reading ability compared to those who are in
home, level of family financial capacity, parents’ occupation level, and parents’
education level. All variables in this section, except ‘things owned at home’ (min. 4;
level of student family’s financial wellness where ‘not well off’ category is
occupation level where ‘never work outside home’ is set to become the
reference category.
reference category.
sex, type of work, and the usage of teaching resources by teachers. In this section, the
usage of teaching resources by teachers at school is the only continuous variable.
Others are categorical and constructed to become dummy variables in the analysis.
(i.e., 29 or less, between 30 and 39, and between 40 and 59). ‘Between 40-
- Teacher Work Type: Teacher work type is divided in two categories, i.e.,
part time and full time. ‘Part time’ category is set to become the reference
category.
category is included in the analysis. The percentage of missing values in each single
Analysis Procedure
effects on students’ reading ability. This method is selected because student reading
ability in this study is constructed as a continuous variable predicted by more than one
explanatory variables, both categorical (e.g., sex, parents’ occupation category) and
continuous (e.g., things owned at home). This statistical procedure assumes the
normality and linearity of the data used, homoscedasticity, and sample randomness
The results (Table 2) show that gender of students has a significant effect on
the 4th grade student reading ability. Females on average outperform their male
counterparts in reading test by 1.907 (se 0.262; p < .001) points. This is consistent
with other findings, such as Ziming and Xiaobin (2008) and Klecker’s (2006) reports.
Chiu and Chang (2006) argue that gender based differences in reading ability might
be a function of female peers. Female students in general tend to have more friends
than male students. Through friendship networks, they are involved more in engaging
learning activities. Others, like Brozo (2005), argue that female teacher domination in
school and classroom environment might lie behind this discrepancy. Female teacher
domination attracts female students more to participate in reading activities than male
students. Another factor, according to Brozo, is media, where female students might
have less interest in spending times watching television and other electronic
such as school textbooks and newspapers. Interestingly, this gender based difference,
as Brozo (2005) argues, does not occur so much in science or math achievement
across countries as in reading literacy. This might be related to the subject interest of
Student Characteristics
Sex (Male= 0)
Female Student 1.910 (.261)*** 1.907 (0.262)***
Age
Student Age 6.411 (2.025)** 6.380 (2.026)**
Student Age Squared, Peak Value = 9.82 -.327 (.094)** -.325 (.094)**
Student Age/Missing Values 0.3 % -2.980 (2.320) -3.035 (2.320)
Language before School (Omitted = Other than Indonesian)
Language before School/Indonesian - .387 (.325)
Language before School/Missing 13 % - .487 (.457)
School Characteristics
Location (Suburban= 0)
School Location Area/Rural 2.050 (.477)*** 2.064 (.478)***
School Location Area/Urban -1.773 (.390)*** -1.760 (.392)***
School Location Area/Missing 1% 3.945 (1.214)** 3.841 (1.215)**
Home Characteristics
Things at Home(Continuous 0-5)
Things at Home - .667 (.125)*** - .666 (.125)***
Things at Home/Missing Values 8 % -2.963 (.475)*** -2.983 (.475)***
Parents' Highest Occupation Level (Never Work outside Home for Pay=
0)
Parents' Highest Occupation Level/Professional 2.408 (.864)** 2.353 (.864)**
Parents' Highest Occupation Level/Small Business .805 (.692) .796 (.693)
Parents' Highest Occupation Level/Clerical 2.255 (.667)** 2.224 (.668)**
Parents' Highest Occupation Level/Skilled Worker -.326 (.569) -.379 (.570)
Parents' Highest Occupation Level/General Labor .199 (.587) .150 (.590)
Parents' Highest Occupation Level/Not Applicable 1.211 (.926) 1.172 (.927)
Parents' Highest Occupation Level/Missing 16% -.268 (.619) -.201 (.622)
(continued)
Table 2 continued
Teacher Characteristics
Age (Between 40-59= 0)
Age of Teachers/29 or less -1.346 (.428)** -1.311 (.431)**
Age of Teachers/Between 30 and 39 1.732 (.303)*** 1.748 (.305)***
Age of Teachers/Missing 0.9% 1.007 (1.553) .979 (1.559)
Sex (Male= 0)
Sex of Teachers/Female 1.209 (.280)*** 1.205 (.281)***
Sex of Teachers/Missing 0.1% 4.110 (3.424) 4.328 (3.433)
Work Type (Part Time= 0 )
Part or Full Time Work/Full -.634 (.304)* -.636 (.305)*
Part or Full Time Work/Missing 2% -1.175 (.897) -1.185 (.897)
Using School Resources (Continuous = 0-10)
Using School Resources by Teachers .852 (.095)*** .848 (.095)***
Using School Resources by Teachers/Missing 4% -.831 (.651) -.900 (.653)
Note: Numbers in parentheses are standard errors. Missing values are not interpreted. N = 4774
the students, where male students have similar inclination toward math and science
with their female counterparts. Another possibility is a biological factor, where girls
in terms of age tend to gain communication skills, including reading ability, earlier
compared to boys. Mechtenberg (2009) differently argue that gender based difference
Age also shows a significant effect on reading ability. However, this effect
turns to become negative among the 4th grade students who are more than 9.82 year
old. The estimated age of effect change was calculated using the following equation x
older students are more likely to come from the repeater group, taken into account
that most students in Indonesia start attending primary school when they are 6 year
old. They will normally reach the 4th grade when they are 9 year old. Thus, the 4th
graders who are more than 10 year old are mainly repeaters. Students who have a
reading problem often have difficulties to access other subjects, especially math and
sciences. Furthermore, students who have such issues are mainly from less
advantaged families, both in economic and cultural resources. Their parents cannot
provide them with supportive learning environment, let alone learning resources at
home.
The use of Bahasa Indonesia (language of testing) at home by children prior to
attending school does not prove any significant effects on student reading ability. This
literacy as its use at home does not bring about a differential effect. This also conveys
explicated by the fact that the 168 schools involved in the study were public schools
that received relatively equal amount of resources and financial supports from the
government. They are also run on the same model of schooling governance. As a
result, prior exposure of some students to Bahasa Indonesia at home does not cause
their social and economic conditions because it may allow them as far as Bahasa
Indonesia skill is concerned to have equal life chance in the future. However, this
equalizing effect is also more likely to decrease student appreciation toward their
local languages. In addition, mastering Bahasa Indonesia is not the only factor that
will determine their market position in the future. Social class and economic system
will in the course of their life experiences have crucial effects. Furthermore, tested
receptive in nature. It does not, following Saussure (1966) and Chomsky’s (1965)
definition of language, incorporate the whole system of signs as a life skill required
by society. This type of language testing excludes the ability to creatively generate
ideas in writing and express them orally from consideration. Writing and oral skills
are of the essence to build social networking and to gain market chances. Such
creative skills are highly predetermined by a set of student social, historical and
Controlling for parents’ occupation and education, financial capacity does not
establish any significant effects on student reading ability. More importantly, things at
home, such as computer and study room, are negatively correlated to the reading
ability. Given that a basic test of multicollinearity analysis had been conducted prior
to the main analysis, the absence of financial capacity effect and the occurrence of
negative correlation of ‘things at home’ (- .666 at p < .001) to the reading ability
might indicate an issue of suppressor effect (see Lancaster 1999). This statistical issue
might exist among financial capacity, things at home, and parents’ occupation and
education. Nonetheless, this result might imply that financial capacity is not the only
mechanism that mediates between parents’ occupation and education and the children
learning development, including reading ability. In other words, when parents have
higher financial capacity and provide children with enough facilities at home by virtue
of their occupation and education level, it is not necessarily that this capacity will help
children develop their reading ability. Parents should have certain strategies to bridge
between economic capacity and learning activities to support children reading ability.
parents have no schooling by 7.387 (se .659; p < .001), 4.074 (se .743; p < .001),
2.789 (se .377; p < .001) and 1.549 (se .374; p < .001) points respectively. This
findings, such as Myrberg and Rosén (2008) who reported that parents’ education had
significant effects on student reading ability. Interestingly, this effect is strongly
reading ability. Students whose parents are professionals and clerical workers are
found to have better reading ability compared to students whose parents are small
business owners, skilled workers, general labors, and others. While students whose
parents are professionals and clerical outperform those whose parents never work
outside home for pay by 2.35 (se .864; p < .01) and 2.22 (se .668; p < .01) points
general labor, and others are not significantly different from them (i.e., students
whose parents never work outside home for pay). Apart from their better economic
and cultural resources, these types of students have better parental attention and
aspiration in education. Even though professional parents spend more time outside
home, they have economic ability to hire someone to take care of their children and to
send them to better pre-school programs. On the other hand, clerical staff is more
likely to have less economic and cultural resources compared to the professional, but
have more time to spend for their children at home due to their stable work patterns. It
is important to note that most clerical jobs in Indonesia are in public sectors and are
at p < .001) and urban (-1.706 at p < .001) counterparts in reading ability. This finding
is not consistent with other studies, such as Zhang (2006) and Webber et. al (2003)
reports. They found that urban students often had higher reading ability than rural
students due to their greater exposure to media, reading resources, and learning
technologies. This is also not in line with the fact that most parents with college
attention to their school reading materials because these are the only learning
resources available for them. On the other hand, rural children who manage to go to
school are more likely to come from families that have higher aspiration to perform
social class and education mobility (see Agnew 1983). Rural parents view education
as the only way to help their children perform class mobility in the future. Therefore,
parents who manage to facilitate their children to finish secondary school are more
likely to have their children to move to the city to undertake college education. It is
worth noting that college and university are mainly founded in main provincial cities
and there are not any colleges located in rural areas. On the contrary, parents who
cannot envisage any possibilities to provide financial supports for their children will
not let them to start schooling. If they let them go to school, they will not be
supportive enough. Thus, those children who can reach fourth grade in rural schools
It might be argued that this is also true for poor urban children. However, poor
and less educated parents in the urban areas are interested to send their children to the
primary schools to obtain only a minimum ability to read, write, and count. These
skills are necessary for them to survive in the city. Unlike urban children, rural
children can survive without being able to read, write and count by becoming illiterate
farmers. In addition, not being able to have higher education for rural parents does not
necessarily mean that they are poor. Their livelihood is somehow determined by how
many acres of land they have, not on how high their education level is. Thus, sending
kids to school for them is a way to anticipate economic life change from agriculture to
other forms of fields. Thus, schooling for urban and rural parents has different
meaning.
Teachers’ sex, age, and the use of learning resources at school show
teachers are found outperforming those whose teachers are males by 1.205 (se .281; p
< .001) points. This is in accord with the initial finding suggesting that female
their feminized school environment (Brozo 2005). Similarly, teachers’ age indicates a
significant effect on student reading ability. Students taught by teachers who are
between 30 and 39 year old have better reading ability by 1.748 (se .305; p <.001)
points compared to those whose teachers are between 40 and 59 year old. Similarly,
they are better at reading from those whose teachers are less than 30 year old. This
can be understood based on the culture of teaching job in Indonesia. Often, teachers
who are less than 30 year old lack experiences, but they have higher career
orientation. On the contrary, teachers who are between 40 and 59 year old often have
more experiences, but less enthusiastic in career orientation. They somehow feel that
they do not need to work harder anymore because they have reached career stability.
Only teachers who are between 30 and 39 year old are more likely to combine both
experiences and strong career orientation. Therefore, this group of teachers can make
finding for Sweden case in PIRLS 2001. She concluded that there were no significant
student reading ability that could be established. This is not surprising because
in Sweden is not anymore, to some extent, an issue in school environment. Both male
regardless of their teacher gender. Also, Sweden might have strong teacher education
service experiences.
Surprisingly, students who are taught by full time teachers have lower reading
attainment compared to those who are taught by part time teachers by -.636 (se .305;
p <.05) points. Here, it is suggested that this finding is corresponding to the teaching
established their career as long serving teachers incline to become less motivated to
perform as effective as possible. They are less competitive because they do not worry
about losing job. Government bureaucracy provides job security for those who have
obtained civil servant status and served as teachers for a long period of time. On the
other hand, students whose teachers use more teaching resources in classroom have
better reading ability by .848 (se .095 ; p < .001) points compared to those whose
teachers use them less. This might be explained by the assumption that the more
resources to read, the more practices students can have. More importantly, the more
efffective teachers use them, the more likely students become engaged in learning
processes.
Conclusions
The results of the analysis show that the gender of both student and teacher
has significant effects on student reading ability, where female students outperform
school (Chiu and Chang 2006; and Brozo 2005). Economic and cultural capital also
demonstrates significant effects on reading ability. As with students whose parents are
professionals and clerical staff, students whose parents are university graduates are
more competent at reading. Unexpectedly, the use of Bahasa Indonesia (the language
of testing) at home by children prior to attending school does not establish any
relative success at equalizing student reading ability. Similarly, the level of the
student’s family financial capacity does not indicate any influence on reading ability,
when controlled for parents’ education and occupation level. However, this finding
should be read carefully because financial capacity might have a suppressor effect on
reading ability. Furthermore, urban students and those who are taught by full time
teachers or either younger or older teachers are surprisingly less competent in reading.
This signifies the effects of work cultures and power relations among teacher groups
work culture created by the government bureaucracy tends to have negative effects on
student learning as a result of the work style it brings about. Consequently, some
development such as gender, school geographical location, and teacher age and job
status appear to bring about counterproductive effects. It is also crucial for the
educational policy makers to pay attention to the condition of local languages that
might be affected by the use of Bahasa Indonesia as the only language of instruction.
Furthermore, it is very important to create a school system that might be able to dilute
aspirations among students because either social class or aspiration can each make a
citizens.
References