Local Storybooks and Cultural–Civic Literacy Development in Primary Schools: A Quasi-Experimental Study from Indonesia
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This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of culturally based children’s storybooks in strengthening students’ cultural literacy and civic literacy simultaneously. A quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group was employed, involving 60 elementary school students divided into experimental and control classes. The experimental group received instruction using child-friendly, bilingual storybooks grounded in Gorontalo culture, while the control group followed conventional learning practices. Data were collected through pretest and posttest instruments measuring cultural literacy and civic literacy. Statistical analyses were conducted using appropriate parametric and non-parametric tests, complemented by normalized gain (N-gain) and effect size calculations. The results demonstrate that students in the experimental group showed significantly higher improvements in both cultural literacy and civic literacy compared to the control group. The intervention produced a large effect on cultural literacy and a moderate-to-strong effect on civic literacy, indicating substantial pedagogical impact. These findings suggest that culturally grounded narrative media function as an effective pedagogical instrument for reinforcing cultural identity and civic understanding in elementary education, offering a scalable model for culturally relevant learning in diverse sociocultural contexts.
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