ISLAMIC EDUCATION UNDER STATE LAW: NEGOTIATING GOVERNANCE, AUTONOMY, AND PEDAGOGICAL IDENTITY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59165/educatum.v3i2.185Keywords:
Islamic Education, State Law, Pedagogical IdentityAbstract
Islamic education operates within increasingly complex legal and governance frameworks shaped by state regulation, accountability demands, and educational standardization. While state law aims to ensure institutional legitimacy and quality assurance, it simultaneously raises questions regarding autonomy and the preservation of pedagogical identity within Islamic educational institutions. This study examines how Islamic education negotiates governance, autonomy, and pedagogical identity under state law through a qualitative library-based research approach. Drawing on scholarly literature, policy documents, and legal texts related to Islamic education and educational governance, the study employs thematic analysis to explore patterns of regulatory adaptation and institutional response. The findings reveal that governance in Islamic education is best understood as a negotiated process rather than a unilateral exercise of state control. Islamic educational institutions tend to adopt selective administrative compliance to meet legal requirements while maintaining substantive autonomy in pedagogical and moral domains. Autonomy emerges as relational and context-dependent, shaped by ongoing interactions between state regulation, institutional leadership, and religious tradition. Pedagogical identity proves to be the most resilient dimension of autonomy, largely sustained through internal leadership authority and the reinterpretation of regulatory frameworks. The study contributes theoretically by advancing the concept of negotiated governance in the context of Islamic education, challenging binary views of regulation versus autonomy. From a policy perspective, the findings suggest that adaptive and dialogical regulatory approaches are more effective in supporting educational quality and institutional sustainability. Overall, this study positions Islamic education as an active educational actor capable of engaging constructively with state law while safeguarding its pedagogical distinctiveness.
References
Bielefeld, W., & Cleveland, W. S. (2013). Faith-based organizations as service providers: The role of religion in organizational identity, governance, and practice. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(3), 468–494. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764012462132
Salamon, L. M. (2015). The resilient sector. Brookings Institution Press.
Pierre, J., & Peters, B. G. (2020). Governance, politics and the state (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.
Nuriz, M. A. F., & Awang, J. (2025). Islamic education in Indonesia: Study of Azyumardi Azra’s thought. Ar-Raniry: International Journal of Islamic Studies, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.22373/jar.v5i2.9836
Mustofa, M. S., Syukur, F., & Muhlisin, M. (2025). Islamic educational policy analysis on facilitating Islamic boarding school development under the local regulation. Scaffolding: Jurnal Pendidikan Islam dan Multikulturalisme, 7(2), 481–498. https://doi.org/10.37680/scaffolding.v7i2.7081
Steiner-Khamsi, G., & Waldow, F. (Eds.). (2012). Policy borrowing and lending in education. Routledge.
Hefner, R. W. (2021). Islam and institutional religious freedom in Indonesia. Religions, 12(6), 415. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060415
Bush, T. (2020). Theories of educational leadership and management (5th ed.). Sage Publications Ltd.
Kairin, U., Febria, T. D., & Subekti, M. A. (2025). Integrasi pesantren dan sekolah negeri: Analisis regulasi dan kebijakan berdasarkan Undang-Undang No. 18 Tahun 2019 tentang Pesantren. Tanzhimuna: Jurnal Manajemen Pendidikan Islam, 5(2), 158–169. https://doi.org/10.54213/52rpgy78
Zahwa, A. P., Tasya, S. A., & Rahman, F. (2025). Integrasi pendidikan Pancasila di pesantren: Tinjauan yuridis terhadap UU Sistem Pendidikan Nasional. Jurnal Pendidikan dan Hukum Islam, 9(1), 23–39.
Hefner, R. W. (2022). How Indonesia became a world leader in Islamic education: A historical sociology of a great transformation. Muslim Education Review, 1(1), 3-18.
Salamon, L. M. (2015). The resilient sector. Brookings Institution Press.
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). Sage.
Silverman, D. (2016). Qualitative research (4th ed.). Sage.
Bakar, M. Y. A., Firmansyah, E., & Abdeljelil, M. B. (2024). Legal Framework Analysis of Islamic Religious Education Policy Implementation. International Journal of Law and Society (IJLS), 3(3), 217-237.
Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology. Journal of Business Research, 104, 333–339.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.
Brefo, H. (2024). Traditional authority, enlightenment, and education bureaucracy in Ghana: The case of the Otumfuo Education Fund (Doctoral dissertation, University of Birmingham).
Jabareen, Y. (2009). Building a conceptual framework: Philosophy, definitions, and procedure. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(4), 49–62.
Meydan, C. H., & Akka?, H. (2024). The role of triangulation in qualitative research: Converging perspectives. In Principles of conducting qualitative research in multicultural settings (pp. 98-129). IGI Global.
Allen, C., Malekpour, S., & Mintrom, M. (2023). Cross?scale, cross?level and multi?actor governance of transformations toward the sustainable development goals: A review of common challenges and solutions. Sustainable Development, 31(3), 1250-1267.
Jonas Frödin, O. (2024). Cognitive microfoundations and social interaction dynamics. The implications of complexity for institutional theory. Theory and Society, 53(5), 1019-1047.
Woelert, P. (2023). Administrative burden in higher education institutions: A conceptualisation and a research agenda. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 45(4), 409-422.
Soycan, N. (2023). Teacher Identity and Symbolic Boundaries: A Case Study of a Private School (Master's thesis, Middle East Technical University (Turkey)).
Hajar, A. (2024). Navigating Globalization: Reforming Islamic Education for the 21st Century. Sinergi International Journal of Islamic Studies, 2(1), 53-65.
