Culturally based learning needs of Korowai students in a lowland-remote area of Indonesian Papua: school physical environment and building design

Abstract

AbstractThis study explored the culturally based learning needs of Korowai students living in a lowland-remote area in Papua to address the question of how education in this part of Indonesia could be inclusive and engaging for indigenous students and their community. Case study was selected as it has potential to reveal detailed structured information and in-depth description of people and their experiences within a particular location, time and socio-political circumstance. The case study school was purposively chosen, due to its uniqueness of being situated in a remote, hunter-gatherer community that only recently began to modernise. School physical environment and building design was one of the identified themes that emerged in the case study school. This theme included some sub-themes, namely (1) the school building design, (2) forest as the school’s physical environment, and (3) school garden and animal husbandry. The Korowai students brought social and cultural capital and expectations to their local school that differed from those of traditional Indonesian school expectations and presented different learning needs. How the local school and teachers responded to these varied expectations and learning needs also differed and revealed further needs for differentiation in education. These points of differentiation include needs in their physical environment: to build some classrooms in the style of Korowai treehouse dwellings and to replant forest and food trees close to the school to provide students with a sense of cultural connection and school belonging.