Tolerance Developing in Early Childhood Education Based Child-Friendly School

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
Child-Friendly Schools (CFS) has become a global concern.CFS is an embodiment of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Declaration for Education for All (Çobanoğlu et al., 2018;Godfrey et al., 2012;Makwarela et al., 2017).In Indonesia, it is also known as Sekolah Ramah Anak (SRA).The main background of this program is that, at school, children often experience pressure, discomfort, potential bullying, and various forms of violence (Putri & Akmal, 2019;Zumaroh & Widodo, 2018).Data for January 2024 shows that there have been 3547 cases of violence against children.As many as 63.8% of victims of violence were children, of which 29.2 were young children (Kemenpppa, 2024).In Indonesia, SRA has the same goal as CFS: to become a safe and comfortable school for every child.The implication is that the learning process and results are maximized.
In this manuscript, the abbreviation CFS is used to refer to SRA.CFS is defined as a formal, non-formal, and informal education unit that is a safe, clean and, healthy, caring, and cultured environment, able to guarantee, fulfill, respect children's rights and protect children from violence, discrimination, and other mistreatment and support children's participation, especially in planning, policy, learning, supervision, and complaint mechanisms related to the fulfillment of children's rights and protection in education (PPPA Law No.8 : Indonesian Child-Friendly School Policy, 2014).CFS has been widely studied at various levels of education (Amrina et al., 2022;Kristanto et al., 2012;Putri & Akmal, 2019;Rohmana & Suyanto, 2019).It is included in the context of early childhood education.In this case, it is called Early Childhood Education based Child-Friendly School (ECE-CFS).ECE-CFS has been proven to benefit children positively (Na'imah et al., 2020;Nuraeni et al., 2019).Among them, it has a positive impact on the development of physical, mental health, and character development.
ECE-CFS, implemented through several programs such as school-based character education, safe school environment, friendly school, inclusive school, and religious school, can develop early childhood character.Its implementation requires managerial aspects such as preparation, planning, and implementation (Na'imah et al., 2020).Empirical studies that apply regression tests also show a positive impact on the implementation of ECE-CFS for character development in early childhood.Quantitatively, it is stated that ECE-CFS programs impact 40.9% of character development in early childhood (Nuraeni et al., 2019).Through the lens of globalization, ECE CFS is also one of the educational concepts relevant to facing various dynamics of global change.In this way, a generation will be created that will be able to collaborate and contribute globally (Amrina et al., 2022).
Conceptually, ECE-CFS has a role that is closely related to the development of a school culture free from discrimination, bullying, and violence.These negative behaviors are strongly influenced by low tolerance (Arumsari et al., 2018;Mawaddah et al., 2023) in early childhood.The 2013 curriculum (Permendikbud No.137, 2014;Permendikbud No. 146, 2014) and the emancipatory curriculum (BSKAP, 2022a;Satria et al., 2022) consistently set the ideal achievement target of developing tolerance in early childhood.In simple terms, it can be explained as knowing and appreciating all the differences in other people.In the form of willingness and ability to appreciate, respect, and accept all differences from others.In other words, the goal of developing tolerance that various ECE curricula in Indonesia have set can be supported by the implementation of ECE-CFS.This means that ECE-CFS can be vital for successfully developing early childhood tolerance.
Unfortunately, many studies documented early childhood intolerant behavior that occurs in various regions in Indonesia.For example, in Medan, children do not yet have moral knowledge about tolerance and respect for cultural diversity (Fauziah et al., 2023).In Surakarta, 210 young children were surveyed, and the weakest moral ability was tolerance (Jumiatmoko & Hanafi, 2020).Intolerance in the form of choosing friends when playing and not being able to respect other friends occurred in a kindergarten in Karawang (Sulaiman et al., 2023).In West Jakarta, intolerant behavior was found in the form of not wanting to listen to friends when they spoke and respecting their friends' opinions (Annisa & Djamas, 2021).In Tidore, intolerance takes the form of insulting each other and laughing at different friends (Manaf et al., 2023).Likewise, in Jambi, intolerance takes the form of bullying and violence towards friends who are weaker and different from themselves (Novalia & Kusayang, 2023).Intolerance in early childhood at one of the kindergartens in Southeast Pontianak also occurs through mocking friends with different skin colors, languages, food, and ways of praying (Sipa et al., 2019).Even in Surabaya, acts of intolerance in early childhood were found in the form of hitting, being hostile, and bullying friends who were weaker or different from themselves.(Pitaloka et al., 2021).Intolerant behavior appears in play activities.In addition, intolerant behavior also arises when there are differences in opinions, skin color, language, food supplies, or religious rituals.Some even lead to bullying and violent behavior.
Intolerance formed in childhood is often challenging to change as an adult (Peplak et al., 2017).Intolerance, which manifests as discriminatory behavior, has a negative impact on psychological development, safety, well-being (Dwiningrum et al., 2020;Save the Children, 2006), and health problems (Taylor, 2015).Tolerance is one of the most important values that must be taught in early childhood (Brenick et al., 2019;Godwin & Ausbrooks, 2001).Tolerance will make children wellaccepted in society (Azizah, 2019).Tolerance can be developed at school (Novianti et al., 2023;Taş & Minaz, 2019) with various relevant programs, models, or approaches.ECE-CFS has the most potential characteristics in developing tolerance in Indonesia.The main argument is that Indonesia is a country with a high level of diversity.It starts religion, ethnicity, race, language, and various cultural products.Ideally, Schools with CFS status have experienced best practices in developing tolerance in early childhood.
To the best of the researcher's knowledge, no study explicitly identifies best practices related to developing early childhood tolerance in ECE-CFS.The results of this identification are beneficial in providing examples for other schools.The accompanying impact can encourage adaptation, creation, and duplication in efforts to stimulate the development of tolerance in early childhood.This research was conducted regarding the following research questions: What types of best practices are implemented in ECE-CFS to develop tolerance in early childhood?What is the quantity distribution of the best practices implemented by ECE-CFS to develop tolerance in early childhood?

METHOD
This research uses a qualitative approach.The instrument used was a questionnaire with open questions compiled in the Google Form platform (Batubara, 2016).The Google Form link was shared with respondents through the WA Group of ECE Teachers.Researchers provided a prerequisite; respondents are teachers who work at ECE-CFS institutions.
Correspondents who fit the criteria totaled 102 (one hundred and two).Respondents who fit the criteria can anonymously answer questions on Google Forms (Pascual-Arias & Soria, 2020).The questions consist of data on institutional origin: type of institution, institutional accreditation, and provincial origin.Also questions regarding best practices for developing tolerance are as follows: 1) Do you have Best Practices in ECE-CFS that are successful in developing tolerance?then, 2) describe the Best Practices of Tolerance Development in ECE-CFS!Especially, in the question item regarding best practices for developing tolerance, respondents can fill in more than 1 (one) best practice.The best practices in question are specific to the development of tolerance that has successfully demonstrated a contribution to the development of tolerance in early childhood.Data filling is given a time duration of 2 x 24 hours.An illustration of the research stages can be seen in Figure 1.c. Constructing themes: Activity data that has been labelled is then analyzed for similarity of substance.
Data with similar substance is then included in one theme.In this research, the theme is called "TYPE" and the activity data is called "EXAMPLE ACTIVITY".d. e. Interpreting the findings: Based on the tabulated data, the findings are then interpreted to answer the research questions that have been set.

Result
The respondents involved in this research were very diverse.Respondents have a background in the type of institution consisting of 1) Public Kindergarten, 2) Bustanul Athfal (BA)/Kind of Islamic Private Kindergarten, 3) Private Kindergarten, and 4) Religious Based Private Kindergarten.The most common type of institution is a private religious kindergarten.Regarding accreditation rating, the ECE-CFS involved in this study also varied, ranging from unaccredited to A-accredited institutions.The last component is provincial origin.Respondents in this study came from Aceh to West Nusa Tenggara.The dominant provinces of origin are Central Java and East Java (See Table 1).

Types, Examples, and Distribution of Best Practices
Based on the data presented in Table 2, 19 (nineteen) types of best practices were identified.They are coded A (Alpha) to Q (Queen).For each type of best practice, examples of activities are described as written in the "example activities" column.Respondents did not clearly describe several types of best practices, such as storytelling activities, games, and character learning.The distribution of this number was obtained by counting the activity labels that emerged from the respondents' statements (See Figure 2).In terms of numbers, the most common type of best practices implemented by ECE-CFSs in developing tolerance is habituation activities.The following is an example of an excerpt of a statement from a respondent regarding the best practices of habituation (B).
...I make it a habit to invite children to deliberate, choose games, discuss, make class agreements, pray in congregation, pray according to their respective religions...the result is that children can be tolerant of others... (G.2-BA).
...every morning after prayer, children are accustomed to sharing their experiences one by one ... other children listen and after the story is finished, children one by one ask questions ... this is a best practice to stimulate tolerance in early childhood, and so on ... (G.6-BA).

...morning habituation is shaking hands with everyone at school and being polite or respecting others... (G.36-TK S).
In some of these examples, respondents stated that stimulation of tolerance in early childhood is carried out through habituation.When examined, respondents stated the impact of successful tolerance development through habituation.The components tolerance that emerges in the form of behavior is willing to take turns, respect each other, be willing to listen to each other, or respect other friends.The next dominant type of best practice is the stimulation of tolerance development through exemplary behavior (F).As stated by the following respondents: ...always give an example of not mocking friends when they have differences either from the clothes they wear, or the body (features) that exist (differently) in children... (G.32-TK S).
...best practices that we have implemented at school...teachers respect the differences between normal students and students with special needs... (G.35-TK S) The process of tolerance stimulation is also reflected in the examples shown by the teacher.In these examples, the diversity of children's characteristics can be an object for developing tolerance in early childhood.The substance is in the example shown by the teacher when interacting with diverse students.Respondents also stated that special activities were organized to stimulate the development of tolerance in early childhood.Special activities (J) organized in ECE-CFSs include: ...in our school program ... every Friday we do self-reflection.Teachers and students remember while telling stories of things that have been done both good and less good, and apologize again if in the past few days have made mistakes to friends or teachers ... the results have been seen ... there are changes in the attitude of children who begin to look more respectful and more willing to work together ..

. (G.21-TK N).
There is a blessing Thursday activity, which is an activity to set aside some of the sustenance to be given to other friends in need (G.88-TK SK).Special activities in developing tolerance can be interpreted as an activity that is specifically designed and implemented both incidentally and routinely to develop tolerance.Based on the description of the respondents' statements, tolerance is associated with the behavior of respecting, cooperating, or caring about other friends.One of the exciting things is that tolerance is also implemented by structuring the classroom environment (S).They are not separating children with special needs, facilitating children's diverse learning styles, and allowing students from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds to wear different clothing models because of their beliefs.
...I have two students with special needs, namely speech impaired and delayed speech, in communicating they have difficulty...so that these two children can be accepted by their friends is to directly involve them in simple games in class... (G.76-TK SK).
...accepts children with special needs whose classes are not separated from other children... .
The rest of the stimulation of tolerance development is also carried out by implementing games, video utilization, movement activities, and songs.The selection of videos and songs is dominated by themes related to religious tolerance.The most minor types found were collaboration with other parties and character education.The other parties involved are parents.Likewise, with the type of character education, there was only 1 (one) finding with no specific examples of its implementation.

Discussion
The most dominant type of activity to develop tolerance in ECE-CFSs is habituation.This finding is based on the results of previous research, such as research by Pitaloka et al. (2021) and Shaleh and Fadhilah (2022).Contradictorily, the results show that not all ECE-CFSs have best practices in developing tolerance.As many as 17% of ECE-CFSs have not reported any best practices demonstrating the successful development of tolerance.This situation has also been a concern of previous researchers, who believe that the awareness and competence of educators (Sum & Taran, 2020;Vu et al., 2015) are factors that significantly impact the development of tolerance in schools.From an institutional perspective, similar facts are also found.ECE-CFSs also face challenges in implementing the ideal CFS indicators due to teacher competence (Hasibuan & Rahmawati, 2019), principals (Effendi, 2023), and management (Alfina & Anwar, 2020;Fahmi, 2021) This study also found that most teachers' understanding of tolerance is limited to the religious dimension and those related to children with special needs.This is also because religious values have contributed to educational and moral development, including tolerance (Tambak et al., 2021).If examined in the 2013 curriculum (Permendikbud No.137, 2014;Permendikbud No. 146, 2014), the emancipatory curriculum, and the Pancasila learner profile (BSKAP, 2022a(BSKAP, , 2022b)), tolerance conceptually means appreciating diversity.Diversity, in this case, has a broader and more complex scope.Systematically, for early childhood, tolerance includes the willingness and ability to respect personal preferences, beliefs, and morals (ways of behaving) (Danniels & Perlman, 2021).This research's findings show that most of the best practices are about Beliefs.Meanwhile, the Preferences and moral components are still not optimal.Thus, ECE-CFS needs to review and improve the process of developing tolerance that accommodates diversity, at least in these three components.
ECE-CFS and the emancipatory curriculum are based on the same philosophy of thought: Progressivism (Faiz & Kurniawaty, 2020;Soviet et al., 2023).The philosophy of progressivism carries the concept of progress in education (Gutek, 1974).Its characteristics are consistently implementing innovations to achieve better results.From various respondents' statements, it appears that innovations still need to be implemented to develop tolerance in ECE-CFS.Various innovations in tolerance development have been developed, implemented, and tested for effectiveness.For example, in various forms of media (Fauziah et al., 2023;Nuryanah et al., 2021;Purnamasari & Wuryandani, 2019;Salim et al., 2022;Soraya, 2013) and a variety of learning approaches (Manaf et al., 2023;Mirnawati et al., 2017), or learning models (Badriah et al., 2019;Bouillet & Miškeljin, 2017;Wilyanita et al., 2023).ECE-CFS can identify needs, develop, and then adapt various innovations in developing tolerance in early childhood that are considered most relevant.
Finally, from a social capital perspective.The success of the education process in schools is inseparable from the quality and components of collaboration (Bourdieu, 1986) between schools, teachers (Maryatun, 2016), parents, and communities.Social capital in tolerance development efforts will encourage achieving more optimal tolerance development.Unfortunately, in the results of this study, there is only 1 (one) finding, and it needs to be expressly explained the role of parents and the community in developing tolerance.Parents and the community have been proven to contribute significantly to the success of education implementation as well as the development of tolerance in the school context (Aryani & Wilyanita, 2022;Marintan & Priyanti, 2022;Misahapsari & Stevanus, 2023;Nazarullail & Maskulin, 2023;Putri & Akmal, 2019;Rahnang et al., 2022;Syamsurrijal, 2018).ECE-CFS can identify and improve collaboration between parties to strengthen social capital and develop tolerance.Additional findings from this research, teachers stated that the obstacles faced in developing tolerance were teachers' perceptions that children were still egocentric, lack of family and community support, differences in parenting styles, and teachers' lack of knowledge.Longitudinal follow-up research can be conducted to quantitatively measure the impacts of ECE-CFS on early childhood tolerance development.In this case, the degree of influential factors related to the development of tolerance in ECE-CFS can also be identified.In addition, a comparative test of tolerance development in ECE-CFS and non-ECE-CFS can be conducted to determine the effectiveness of ECE-CFS in developing tolerance in early childhood.

CONCLUSION
ECE-CFSs still need to implement tolerance development fully.Habituation, exemplary activities, and organizing special activities dominate the best practice of tolerance development.There must be an actual variety of innovations to develop tolerance in ECE-CFS.In this case, it is necessary to improve teacher competence and institutional management to improve tolerance development practices oriented towards progressivism thinking.ECE-CFS can adapt various empirically tested tolerance development innovations and strengthen the participation of parents and the community to optimize social capital in developing tolerance in early childhood.Future research can be carried out to explore the need to develop teacher competence and increase parental understanding to stimulate tolerance in young children.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Research Stages The collected data was organized in a spreadsheet.Then, it is analyzed and grouped according to the themes that appear in the description of the respondents' answers.Qualitatively, types and examples of best practice activities of tolerance development were found.While quantitatively (descriptive), obtained: 1) comparison of the percentage of ECE-CFSs that have best practices and do not have best practices (See Figure 2), and 2) distribution of the number of each type of best practice.Data analysis used Corbin & Strauss' (2014) open coding and axial coding approach adapted from Yang (2020), with the following steps: a. Reading statements: An in-depth look at each answer description in the Spreadsheet was conducted.b.Coding statements: Label each answer description regarding the research question.Example: "...by telling stories or storytelling I can usually convey things related to tolerance [Storytelling] with simple sentences that are easy for children to understand..." This statement was also labelled [There is Best Practice] for comparison there is an answer description like this: "...In detail, I have not yet, I only stimulate independently" is labelled [No Best Practice].

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Types of Best Practices for Stimulating the Development of Tolerance ini ECE-CFS Tabulating the themes and categories: Types and Examples of Activities are systematically organized in Table 2.
Copyright © 2024, Jurnal Pendidikan Anak ISSN 2302-6804 (print),ISSN 2579-4531 (online) Tabel 2. Best Practices of Tolerance Development in ECE-CFS J Special activities Friday Blessing activities; giving help to friends in difficulty; Friday Reflection; Pondok Ramadhan; Pondok kasih; Sunday Alms; Sharing food during religious holidays; Alms Cans; Infaq; Eating together; Social Service; Thursday Blessing.K Role Play Role plays about tolerance; Simple drama.L Outing Class activities Outing Class; Visiting the school environment.