Socialization goals of preschool teachers for moral education: A cross-cultural comparison between urban contexts of Germany and Indonesia

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to determine the socialization goals related to the moral education taught by preschool teachers of children aged 2–6 years in two different cultures, Indonesia and Germany. Thirteen preschools with 138 teachers from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and 20 preschools with 73 teachers from Bielefeld and Muenster, Germany answered a questionnaire containing the 6 socialization goals with 23 items. The results revealed a main effect of culture, F(1, 209) = 85.79, p < .001, ${\eta }_p^2$ = .291, a main effect of socialization goals, F(5, 1045) = 127.58, p < .001, ${\eta }_p^2$ = .379 and an interaction effect between two, F(5, 1045) = 124.58, p < .001, ${\eta }_p^2$ = .373, indicating that there were significant differences between the moral socialization goals taught by Indonesian and German preschool teachers and within each country. However, we did not find differences in moral socialization goals between religious and non-religious preschools.

KEYWORDS:

• Socialization goals
• moral values
• moral education
• preschool teachers
• children aged 2–6 years

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sri Indah Pujiastuti

Sri Indah Pujiastuti is a lecturer of Teacher Education of Early Childhood Education, State University of Jakarta, Indonesia. She has been studying Ph.D. at the Institute for Psychology in Education and Teaching, University of Muenster, Germany. Her teachings reflect assessment and evaluation in early childhood education, child development, children's play, and teaching and learning in early childhood education. Her research interests are assessment and evaluation in early childhood education, emotional development and competences of children, children's play, moral and religious development of children, and multiculturality of early childhood education. Her publications include books, articles, proceedings, and chapters on topics such as moral development of children, assessment and evaluation in early childhood education, stories for kindergarten, a cross-cultural comparison of socializing moral and emotion by preschool teachers in Germany and Indonesia, academic culture based on research methodology, poems for elementary school and spiritual poems.

Melanie Schwarz

Melanie Schwarz is a research assistant at the Institute for Psychology in Education and Teaching, University of Muenster. One line of her research addresses the cultural impact on emotion and moral development throughout lifespan, a second line examines emotion expression and regulation in psychopathology. Her lectures mainly focus on the school context and comprise subject areas such as socio-emotional development and classroom management.

Manfred Holodynski

Manfred Holodynski is a Professor at the Institute for Psychology in Education and Teaching, University of Muenster, Germany. His research interests and teaching reflect emotional development from a cultural-historical perspective, early childhood education especially pretend play and socio-emotional competence as well as classroom management for primary teachers and video-based professionalization of teachers. He is Associate Editor of Social Development.