Balancing Local Cultural Values and Global Character Education: A Systematic Review of Social Emotinal Learning (SEL) in Primary Schools

Abstrak

Globalization in the 21st century has brought global character values such as collaboration, critical
thinking, and international insight to become increasingly dominant in education. However, this
dominance often shifts local character values such as responsibility, discipline, social awareness, and
empathy that have been the foundation of basic education in Indonesia. The imbalance between the
two poses a challenge in forming a generation that has strong local character while being ready to
compete globally. This article aims to systematically examine the role of the Social Emotional
Learning (SEL) approach in bridging local and global character values at the elementary school
level. The method used is the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of 18 scientific articles published
between 2019 and 2024. The results of the study show that the implementation of SEL in the
elementary school curriculum is able to develop global character values, such as cooperation,
tolerance, and reflective thinking, without ignoring local cultural values such as mutual cooperation,
responsibility, and respect for diversity. SEL that is community-based and integrated with local
cultural values has proven effective in forming a balanced character of students. Thus, the
implementation of SEL in elementary schools needs to be carried out contextually, respecting culture,
and integrated into the learning process so that character education is comprehensive and relevant in
facing global challenges.