Integrating Artificial Intelligence into Reader Response Theory: A Culturally Responsive Approach to Inclusive Indonesian Literature Education

Abstract

Indonesian literature education is increasingly oriented to consider students' diverse cultural backgrounds, language abilities, and learning processes. However, at present, literature teaching is based on culturally homogeneous literature knowledge and reading skills, so students have difficulty understanding literary texts that are entangled in complex historical, sociocultural, and linguistic contexts. This study addresses the integration of AI with Reader Response Theory (RRT) in Indonesian literature education to promote more inclusive reading. It considers whether AI-supported features (contextual annotation, automated translation, text-to-speech, and adaptive learning paths) can help students construct personal meanings while preserving the central RRT notion that literary meaning is delivered through transactions between the reader and text. Five Indonesian literature works (Bumi Manusia and Arus Balik by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Gadis Kretek by Ratih Kumala, Robohnya Surau Kami by A.A. Navis, and Layar Terkembang by Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana) are used to illustrate the proposed approach. Our research implies that AI-enhanced reader response helps make culturally and contextually unique knowledge available, and more individualised reader interaction with cultural symbols, historical events/experiences, and social issues. However, excessive technological intervention could hinder reading and the affective, dialogic, and interpretive aspects of literary experience. We therefore propose an AI-Enhanced Culturally Responsive Reader Response framework that considers AI as a replacement for reader agency and rather, an adaptive interpretive scaffold for students and teachers. This approach is relevant to AI-based humanities education by relating technological accessibility, cultural responsiveness, and reader agency as interweaving aspects of inclusive literature learning in contemporary education.