Peer-reviewed article
Nurturing Religious and Moral Values at Early Childhood Education
Hernik Farisia ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This qualitative study examines how religious and moral values are taught to young children at an Indonesian Islamic kindergarten. Teachers integrated the national curriculum with Islamic teachings and school-specific values through both direct lessons and daily activities. Most children showed good progress in developing spiritual attitudes. The study identifies curriculum design and teacher training as key factors supporting this development, while curriculum integration challenges were a barrier.
Key points
- Religious and moral values were cultivated through scientific-based learning and indirect learning during morning activities
- Teachers integrated the national Curriculum 2013, al-Islam curriculum, and Kemuhammadiyahan (school affiliation) materials
- Almost all students achieved very good growth in spiritual attitudes
- Supportive factors included appropriate curriculum framework and the roles of teachers and principals
- Teachers faced difficulties integrating core materials from multiple curriculum sources
Limitations
This is a descriptive study of one kindergarten with no comparison group, so findings cannot be generalised to other settings or show whether this approach is more effective than alternatives. The study does not measure long-term outcomes or provide quantitative data on the extent of student progress.
Abstract
This study aims to describe the process of nurturing religious and moral values to children at early childhood education since the development of this aspect is urgent to establish the laying foundation of students’ character in the next future. This research is a qualitative descriptive study which uses participative observation, in-depth-interview, and documentation to conduct the data. Meanwhile, the data analyses techniques used Miles & Huberman concept. The findings showed that nurturing religious and moral values within children at Aisyiyah 13 Kindergarten have been cultivated through scientific-based learning and indirect learning through morning activities. In the process of scientific-based learning, the teachers integrated the latest curriculum, al-Islam curriculum, and Kemuhammadiyahan with such materials that are faithful, worship, and morals. Based on the students’ performance, it is known that almost students achieved very good growth related to spiritual attitude. The last part of the article identifies the factor that supports students in enhancing religious and moral values that is the curriculum framework that accommodates religious classroom environment design and the role of teachers and principals. Meanwhile, the inhibiting factors of internalizing religious and moral values to early childhood were teachers got difficulties in integrating the core material of Curriculum 2013, al-Islam, and specific content based on the school affiliated to such as Kemuhammadiyahan.