Saprahan and Character Education: Internalizing Malay Traditional Values in Mempawah

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the internalization model of the values of the Malay Saprahan tradition in the context of character education in the modern era. Saprahan, rich in communal and moral values, faces cultural erosion due to modernization and curriculum constraints. Using a qualitative case study approach involving six key informants (traditional leaders, community members, and teachers) in Mempawah Regency, data were collected through in-depth interviews and participant observation, and strengthened by triangulation techniques to ensure credibility. The findings were analyzed inductively based on an

Ethnopedagogy framework. The results show that Saprahan values can be categorized into Communal and Moral Values, Civic and Identity Values, and Cognitive and Creative Values. A key pattern found is the existence of functional contrast: moral and civic values are optimally internalized in the community through direct practice, but the transmission of cognitive and creative values in schools is hampered structurally. The main obstacles are the lack of local wisdom-based teaching modules and teachers' low understanding of Ethnopedagogy. The novelty of this research is the identification and categorization of Saprahan values into these three dimensions, as well as the proof that the internalization problem lies in the structural gap that separates the community-based (local) curriculum from the formal curriculum. These results emphasize the urgency of developing a Saprahan-Based Ethnopedagogical Curriculum Model to bridge this gap in the future.