Creating a Culture of Religious Tolerance in an Indonesian School

Abstract

The author describes the importance of school–family relations in establishing 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 regarded 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 relations – 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 initiative 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.