Textbook Development based on Multicultural Literacy to Enhance
Students’ Awareness against Social and National Integration
Dwi Setiyadi and V. Teguh Suharto
Universitas PGRI Madiun, Indonesia
Keywords: National Integration Awareness, Multicultural Literacy, Textbook.
Abstract: The paradigm of “bhineka tunggal ika” (unity in diversity) has been internalized to all Indonesian citizens,
yet the antithesis paradigms also spread among societies. Evidence shows that violence, intolerance,
radicalism still threatens the nature of bhineka tunggal ika and democracy. The objectives of this research
were to develop textbook based on multicultural setting to enhance the social awareness of the students of
higher education. Method of research was Research and Development. The subjects of the research are
students of universities. The research was conducted in 2013. The results of the research were: (1) the
establishment of Indonesian Language textbook based on multicultural setting, (2) Indonesian language
textbook based on multicultural informs and teaches the wellbeing of all ethnics, the honor of all religion,
and the high value of the ancestors’ tradition which perceive unity, nationalism, and diversity. (3) The
textbook was able to inspire the youth’s paradigm of diversity and patriotism to avoid intolerance,
radicalism and disintegration.
1 INTRODUCTION
Textbook development based on multicultural
literacy is regarded needed for some reasons.
Recently, the issue of national and social
disintegration not only in the horizontal but also
vertical dimension. Such evidence is motivated by
the economic and social diversity. Economical
shortfall has encouraged social jealousy against the
wealthy which entails the social conflict in the forms
of ethnic communalism, primordial and sectarianism
actions. All the more, although the paradigm of
bhineka tunggal ika (unity in diversity) has been
declared since long ago, the antithesis paradigms are
still latent. Evidence shows that violence,
intolerance, radicalism still threat the Indonesian
unity in diversity and democracy. Even some
educational institutions are intervened by such
paradigm to some extent. The latest researches
showed that among students of some schools
intolerant and radical actions have emerged every
here and there.
Externally, disintegration is motivated by
communication of the global era, where free trade
and sophisticated modes of communication directly
influence the social conducts and behaviors. The
personal and collective global view has encouraged
the emergence of radicalism and disintegration
because of the sense of inferiority of the individuals
and society against the whole world which result in
jealousy. Suharto (2000) in his thesis entitled the
attitude against the national integration suggests that
globalization on one hand can develop the social
wealthy and enhancement, but on the other hand it
can draw people in the social severity. Such a social
gap can draw people into open competition, where
the weak people cannot carry out the balanced
competition otherwise they create dependency
against the strong ones. The unstable condition
encourages reaction to each of parties which can
cause unity breakdown of the nation, where they
strike each other for their own interest which ends in
social conflicts.
Within the framework of the legal policy,
Indonesia is now under pressure. If in the era of
Orde Baru the legal execution is carried out
repressively, by the law of subversive, in the recent
development, when the law of subversive has been
revoked, the legal execution has to be carried out
under legal process and all regulations enacted.
Within the problems of the legal execution in
Indonesia the improper paradigms can easily enter
Indonesia under the era of globalization, including
208
Setiyadi, D. and Suharto, V.
Textbook Development based on Multicultural Literacy to Enhance Students’ Awareness against Social and National Integration.
In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (ANCOSH 2018) - Revitalization of Local Wisdom in Global and Competitive Era, pages 208-211
ISBN: 978-989-758-343-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

terrorism and radicalism. The terrorism and
radicalism can easily enter Indonesia, as to many
countries, by means of social media development
which cannot be hindered. All the more, the
evidence shows that Indonesian society lack of
maturity in using the social media wisely. This
problem is experienced, mostly by youth, among the
Indonesian society who have become the target of
“proxy-war” in the era of “an information edge” like
what is now happening. As it is reviewed from the
survey of the International NGO Forum on
Indonesian Development (Suharto, 2017: 2), the
result of internet and social media mapping showed
that main narration is extremism, extremism keys,
and extremism spreads.
Other aspect which motivates the disintegration
is the socio-cultural dimension, where the
Indonesian society live in multicultural setting.
Although the paradigm of bhineka tunggal ika has
been long internalized as norm for all Indonesian
citizen, the latent antitheses of it are still potential to
come into surface any time. The evidence shows that
the problem of integration in Indonesia is still
significant as a topic of discussion. The diversity of
race, ethnic and religion can be the source of conflict
for the society with limited understanding which
then may spread in inter-group hostility. Religious
fanaticism often becomes the reason for them to
hostile each other, which will of course hinder the
development of collective awareness against the
bhineka tunggal ika and the national integration in
the horizontal and vertical dimension. History
proves that conflicts which are based on race, ethnic
and religion can be easily controlled. People who are
involved in the conflict of race, ethnic and religion
are controlled by deep hatred, which will be even
worse when the authority claim that God belongs to
his group and the other group are enemy who are
cursed by God. The religious dogma is often used to
determine official and military policies not only to
save one’s group but also to destroy other groups
(Suharto: 2000).
Multicultural literacy has become very important
in Indonesia to enhance patriotism, solidarity and
then unity in diversity (Hidayat, 2010). Such an
awareness can be started from the educational
institution, where education nurtures values of such
literacy to pupils (Komalasari, 2012). Higher
education is one among other educational
institutions where the value awareness can be
developed. In the teaching and learning process,
textbook has been used as source of knowledge
(Johnson and Gordon, 1997). Textbook is a book
which contains description about the instructional
materials related to a certain subject or discipline
which is arranged systematically based on certain
objectives, learning orientation and student
development (Hashemi, 2011). As the main
reference, textbook is used in an educational unit
which covers the instructional materials to develop
spiritual status, personality, scientific mastery,
technology, aesthetic, kinesthetic awareness, and
health based on the higher educational standard
(Mahmood, 2011). Then textbook is a learning aids
which is used in an educational institution to support
educational program within the framework of
developing spiritual status, personality, scientific
mastery, technology, aesthetic, kinesthetic
awareness, and health based on the higher
educational standard (Faizah, 2016).
The curriculum development becomes crucial in
every education program, in which textbook has
been regarded important to meet the demand,
because there is no single method or material which
fits to all kind of contexts (Richards, 2001). In terms
of the content, Mukundan et al. (2011: 100 – 106)
recommends that the most important thing in the
textbook development is the quality of the textbook.
The evaluation against the quality of the textbook
can be carried out by some methods, such as
checklist as developed by Cunningworth’s (1995)
focus group discussion, and so forth (Setiyadi, 2015:
25) which emphasizes the aspects of objectives and
approaches, material design and organization,
content, language skills, instructional topics and the
practical consideration. The results of the assessment
are recommendations to develop the given textbook.
2 METHODS
The method of the research is exploration out of the
Research and Development (R & D) adopted from
Borg and Gall (1979). Out of the ten steps as
suggested by Borg and Gall (1979), this research
simplify the mechanism of the whole research by
four stages, they are: (1) exploration, (2)
development, (3) evaluation, and (4) dissemination.
This article covers only the first stage of
development, three of which will be delivered by
other articles. The objective of exploration stage is
to carry out the need assessment for the development
of the textbook. This stage is delivered to measure
the sociocultural awareness of the students of higher
educations. East Java. Observation is used as the
method of collecting data.
Textbook Development based on Multicultural Literacy to Enhance Students’ Awareness against Social and National Integration
209

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The preliminary study which have been done since
2000 through thesis at the State University of
Jakarta, and the stranas research year 2013, funded
by Higher Education Ministry. The principle results
of the preliminary study through the two researches
are as follows: (1) The attitude towards the national
integration is often affected by the flow of
information which is spread by social/ mass media,
electronic media, and the dominant parties in the
society. Inevitably, the role of social media has
become very dominant for young people to access
information. They cannot even be separated from
gadget or any device to be connected to social
media. Consequently, information, ideas, expression
of feeling of one person can be spread broadly and
quickly, no matter it is right or wrong, it is good or
bad. Only very view of people who can use such
device wisely. We need to educate those people so
as to get electronic literacy. Unfortunately, not all of
students have the electronic literacy, who can screen
up information, so as to use and spread the good and
discard the bad. Many of them do not even
understand that the wrong information may
endanger the existence of the people socially,
ideologically, logically. (2) Not all of the students
have the ability to wisely ban the negative ideologies
which enter Indonesia. Even in the developed
countries, diversity has been the cause of social
conflicts. Egoistic individuals and group won’t
understand the essence of peace in the togetherness.
(3) People do not have enough understanding in
living with the values of multi-cultural nation. They
choose to strike others to keep the ideas that they are
right in their own opinion, and that others are wrong.
They lack empathy to be able to feel and stand at the
other people when they interact to each other.
Forcing their own idea and belief to other has been
the most outstanding phenomenon. (4) There is still
demand to nurture the values of the multi culture
through intervention, habituation and internalization.
Multicultural literacy is urgently needed for them to
live together in peace. Indonesia is one country with
the most complex society all over the world.
Diversity exists in many social aspects, such as:
race, religion, language, tribe, and culture. Without
multicultural literacy, Indonesian people will strike
each other. That’s why multicultural literacy very
urgently needed to nurture to (young) people.
Multicultural education becomes crucial, and
multicultural literacy textbook development is
needed. (5) The existing textbooks are difficult to
understand and they cannot nurture the values, and
that’s why the library has to provide textbook which
are innovative, and easy to understand. The
developed textbook directly points out the
framework of values which should be nurtured by
the students.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This exploration stage of the research concludes
that: (1) the textbook development bears handbook
of Indonesian multicultural literacy by which
students can learn values in multicultural setting of
society. (2) Inclusion of wellbeing of all ethnics, the
honor of all religion, and the high value of the
ancestors’ tradition which perceive unity,
nationalism, and diversity within the developed
textbook. (3) By using the textbook in the teaching-
learning process the students nurture paradigm of
diversity and patriotism to avoid intolerance,
radicalism and disintegration.
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