Integrating Acehnese Ethnoscience into Teacher-Child Interactions to Support Young Children’s Social-Emotional Development

Abstract

High-quality teacher–child interaction is a core dimension of process quality in early childhood education, yet classroom interaction is often separated from the cultural knowledge that children bring from their families and communities. This study examines how Acehnese ethnoscience was integrated into teacher–child interactions and how the resulting learning experiences were associated with observable social-emotional behaviours in kindergarten. A descriptive qualitative design was employed at TK Negeri 1 Arongan Lambalek, Aceh Barat, Indonesia. One principal and two classroom teachers participated as key informants, while 30 Group B children were observed during two culturally grounded learning contexts: a traditional-market role-play activity and a traditional-house collaborative activity. Data were generated through interviews, participant observation, structured observation sheets, and documentation, and were analysed through iterative data condensation, thematic organisation, display, and verification. The findings show that culturally familiar contexts supported more dialogic and participatory interaction, including positive teacher responses, open-ended questioning, attentive listening, positive reinforcement, cultural connections, conflict guidance, collaboration, and opportunities for children to express ideas. Descriptive assessment data showed that most children were in the ‘developing as expected’ or ‘developing very well’ categories across cooperation, sharing, emotional regulation, group-task completion, confidence, turn-taking, and opinion expression. Three implementation constraints remained salient: teacher competence in designing ethnoscience-based learning, limited learning media, and instructional time. The study argues that ethnoscience is pedagogically valuable not only as cultural content but as an interactional context that can make early childhood learning more responsive, meaningful, and socially generative. The findings should be interpreted as context-specific qualitative evidence rather than causal proof of effectiveness.