The Analysis of Moral Values Based on Visual Materials in the ELT Textbook for Junior High School Students in Indonesia

Abstract

This qualitative content analysis evaluates the 9th-grade English textbook English for Nusantara to address a critical research gap: the lack of comprehensive moral education amidst rising youth misconduct (e.g., bullying, drug abuse) in Indonesia, specifically focusing on how moral values are integrated with visual rather than verbal materials. The study's purpose is to analyze how the textbook's visual elements align with the Ministry of Education's "Pancasila Student Profiles" framework to foster traits like cooperation, independence, and critical thinking. Guided by Krippendorff’s (2018) content analysis approach and document analysis, the study systematically evaluated all 5 chapters (354 pages) of the ministry-published text. The findings reveal that while all six Pancasila dimensions are present, representation is uneven. Values like faith, noble character, cooperation, critical thinking, and creativity are highly frequent, whereas global diversity and independence appear in only one visual each. Consequently, the research implications suggest that authors must better balance visual moral content, and teachers must actively reinforce these values in class. Furthermore, future researchers are urged to conduct comparative studies across different grade levels and utilize critical discourse analysis to examine verbal content for a more comprehensive evaluation.