<![CDATA[The increased demoralization among children and adolescents underscores the urgency to strengthen character building from an early age through family, school, and community collaboration. This study synthesizes empirical evidence on key factors influencing moral and character development among children and adolescents and map how these findings are distributed across Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems, clarifying which levels are well-evidenced and which remain underexplored in the Indonesian context. This systematic literature review followed PRISMA guidelines, searching national and international databases, including Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Taylor & Francis, and SINTA-indexed journals. From an initial 1.201 articles, screening and eligibility assessment based on relevance, methodological quality, and alignment with review objectives yielded 20 studies for synthesis. Findings reveal an uneven ecological distribution: evidence is concentrated at the microsystem level, where authoritative parenting and school-based learning consistently associate with moral and character outcomes, while peer influence within this layer remains markedly underexamined. Interactions between family and school (mesosystem) and indirect influences such as media exposure (exosystem) are largely absent from the literature, despite their theoretical importance. At the macrosystem level, national policy on character education appears to shape the rising research trend over time (chronosystem), suggesting empirical attention follows policy momentum rather than balanced inquiry. This review concludes that Indonesian research on character development remains ecologically imbalanced, heavily weighted toward micro and macro levels while overlooking interdependencies between systems that Bronfenbrenner’s theory identifies as central to development. Bridging these gaps, especially at the mesosystem and exosystem levels is essential for theory-building and designing coordinated, evidence-based interventions.]]>
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