Revisiting ‘Belajar Gotong-Royong Terpimpin’: An Analysis Of Indigenous Indonesian Cooperative Learning Model

Abstract

Despite the global prominence of Cooperative Learning in educational psychology, its theoretical canon remains largely grounded in Western pedagogical frameworks, leaving historically situated non-Western cooperative models conceptually underexamined. This study revisits Belajar Gotong-Royong Terpimpin (BGT), developed in Indonesia between 1956 and 1962, to address this gap by reconstructing BGT as an indigenous pedagogical model of cooperative learning with distinct cultural–historical foundations. Situated within Indonesia’s postcolonial educational context, BGT integrated collaborative learning with broader aims of collective development, moral formation, and guided social responsibility. Despite its formal endorsement in the 1964 national curriculum, BGT has received limited systematic analysis and remains marginal in contemporary educational research. This study aims to reconstruct the conceptual foundations of BGT, analyze its underlying epistemological assumptions, and compare it with Western Cooperative Learning models to clarify its theoretical distinctiveness. Drawing on archival and library-based research, the study analyzes primary pedagogical texts authored by Sunardi—the founder of BGT—alongside relevant policy documents and canonical Western Cooperative Learning literature. Sources were selected based on historical relevance and explicit pedagogical articulation and were examined using Structuring Qualitative Content Analysis. The findings show that while Western Cooperative Learning conceptualizes cooperation as a set of procedural principles regulating group interaction and individual performance, BGT articulates an integrated pedagogical system in which group organization, guided leadership, evaluation practices, and moral formation are conceptually interdependent. Several core features of BGT cannot be fully accounted for within established Cooperative Learning frameworks, supporting its reconstruction as an epistemologically distinct indigenous pedagogical model. These findings contribute to educational psychology by broadening comparative perspectives on cooperative pedagogies and underscoring the importance of historically grounded indigenous educational theories.