Creating a culture of religious tolerance in an Indonesian school

Abstrak / Ringkasan

The author describes the importance of school–family relations in es-
tablishing a culture of religious tolerance among pupils of a state senior secondary
school in the multicultural city of Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan.
Palangkaraya is a provincial capital city, and is home to different ethnicities and
religions. In 2001, a massive ethnic riot erupted between the local Dayak and
emigrant Madurese in Sampit, a district in Central Kalimantan province, and
quickly spread to other districts, including Palangkaraya. This conflict was re-
garded as a national tragedy and took hundreds of lives. In this post-conflict
context, the author examines how several related aspects of school – culture,
curriculum and instruction, politics and policies, and school–community rela-
tions – contribute to the school’s efforts to nurture religious tolerance among
students. The data were derived from the author’s ethnographic fieldwork in
2010 employing participant observation, focus group discussions and in-depth
interviews with the principal, teachers and students. The findings suggest that
students have acquired an embodied cultural capital of religious diversity and
tolerance from families and community, and that this has equipped them to help
create a ‘tolerance culture’ in the school, despite the unsupportive school politics
and inconsistent school policies related to religious diversity. On their own initia-
tive and, to a lesser extent, inspired by the formal curriculum, religion teachers
play a pivotal role in shaping students’ understanding of religious diversity and
tolerance through deliberate teaching about some aspects of other religions.

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