INDONESIAN PARENTS’ CONSIDERATION TO SELECT CHILDREN BOOK IN CONSTRUCTING MORAL IDENTITY
Abstract
Parents believe that books are the media to enhance children’s knowledge enrichment,
language development, and linguistic competencies. However, there are limited studies that
envisage the involvement of parents in selecting books for their children. Current research
that considers parents’ background as one of the literacy resources remains rare. This
narrative inquiry explores Indonesian parents’ consideration in selecting children’s books
as a means of constructing moral identity. Parents of a second-grade elementary student in
Yogyakarta were the participants in this research. A semi-structured online interview
sparked a discussion on what factors they consider when choosing children's books and
why. The responses of parents revealed some key concerns about book choices: their
experience, child’s contextual needs, and child’s interests. Furthermore, it is found that
Indonesian children’s books tend to have moral fallacies that do not fit well with parents’
moral identity. As a result, parents’ book selection for the child was more into foreign
publishers because they had more precise Islamic moral value representation.