Teachers’ Negotiation of Local Context in the Merdeka Curriculum: A Qualitative Study in Primary Education

Abstract

The Merdeka Curriculum provides teachers with greater flexibility to adapt learning to students’ needs and educational contexts. However, curriculum flexibility does not necessarily translate directly into contextualized classroom practice because teachers must interpret curriculum expectations within particular student, institutional, professional, and material conditions. This study examines how primary school teachers negotiate local context when enacting the Merdeka Curriculum. A qualitative descriptive approach was employed using semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and curriculum document analysis. The analytical dataset comprised eight teacher interviews, two school leadership interviews, four classroom observation records, and fourteen curriculum-related documents. Data were analyzed through initial coding, focused coding, category development, cross-source comparison, and thematic interpretation. The analysis generated four themes: interpreting curriculum flexibility through student needs, negotiating curriculum through local context, exercising teacher agency within institutional conditions, and building confidence through collaboration and practical adaptation. The findings indicate that curriculum flexibility was primarily enacted through small-scale pedagogical adaptations rather than extensive curriculum redesign. Teachers modified examples, instructions, grouping arrangements, learning resources, and activities while generally maintaining intended learning objectives. Local context was understood not only as cultural content but also as students’ everyday experiences, surrounding environments, and locally available resources. Teacher agency was therefore expressed through situated decision-making shaped by institutional support, time, resources, collaboration, and professional confidence. The study contributes to discussions of curriculum enactment by positioning contextualization as an ongoing negotiation between policy expectations and classroom realities.