SEMINAR: Asian Studies Research Seminar 2019

Indonesia has been built on the pluralism principle, as enshrined in its state ideology, Pancasila. However, tension over the relationship between religion and the state has always existed. Contemporary Indonesia is marked by inter-religious conflicts, religious intolerance and the increasing discrimination against religious minorities. Education potentially could be used to promote religious tolerance in a diverse society. In the education system, religious identity formation is foregrounded in specific areas such as curriculum and in broader activities designed to create school culture. Given the centrality of religion in Indonesian culture and schooling, there is a need to better understand the religious life sphere, the possibilities for peaceful religious coexistence, and how children’s religious identities are formed. This presentation provides an outline of a proposed doctoral study that aims to explore school-family relationships and their role in shaping children’s religious identities. It is important to research these relationships for two main reasons. First, religious identity is poorly understood and is only now appearing as a sub-field within identity studies. Research about children’s religious identity is lacking globally especially in the Indonesian context. Second, while there is a large amount of work on parental involvement in schools globally, this is not the case in Indonesia, where there is a major need for further research. Data gathered will be based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork with teachers, parents, school principals, and children in two primary schools in Indonesia, and will employ participant observation, focus groups, in-depth interviews, and photo-elicitation interviews.