ABSTRACT
Prior to the focus on scientific approach in the recent implementation of the 2013 Curriculum, the Indonesian government drafted 18 values abstracted from Pancasila (the official philosophical foundation of Indonesia) and UUD 1945 (the 1945 Constitution). The values, also known as National Character Building, were aimed to promote the betterment of Indonesians’ characters, especially the younger generation. Since the scientific approach moved into the spotlight, a character education approach seems to be missing from both classroom activities and textbooks. As a reminder of how the 18 values of character education could have been an important component of the latest curriculum, alongside the scientific approach, my previous study regarding the depiction of these characters in English commercial textbooks showed that the characters can help learners understand themselves and express their identities, as stated in the philosophical and ideological foundations of Indonesia. However, the result also revealed that some authors of the textbooks did not fully understand the values, which is illustrated in some ambiguous samples. Based on my previous research, I investigate the representation of character education in other textbooks by using the same data collection and data analysis methods, and I offer some alternative learning activities of relevance. This paper elaborates the two aforementioned topics by providing comparisons to my previous study.
