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Youth, Education, and Islamic Radicalism offers groundbreaking analysis of religious intolerance and radicalization among high school and university students in modern-day Indonesia.Indonesia is one of the most diverse countries in the world in terms of religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, but also in the complexity of its education system. Youth, Education, and Islamic Radicalism examines the roots of religious intolerance among young Indonesians and explores the various ways in which educated youth navigate radical ideologies amid growing religious conservatism.The book presents nuanced explanations as to why one person becomes radicalized while another does not, calling into question the common assumption that religious radicalism is directly connected to terrorism. It problematizes the notion that the university is a significant hub, trigger, or birthplace of radicalization by asking: What makes education attractive for extremist recruitment? What shapes students'views? Under what circumstances do radicalization and deradicalization processes of educated youth take place? Youth, Education, and Islamic Radicalism identifies a constellation of factors that shape young people's views of religious diversity in Indonesia, demonstrating the ways in which they become radicalized in the first place, and how, in some cases, they deradicalize themselves.

This book offers a critical analysis on Indonesian education by drawing from various critical perspectives and theoretical frameworks to explore persistent challenges and social inequality problems in the education sector. Critical perspectives are important to reveal how education is not a neutral, mechanistic process of cultivating the knowledge and skills of future generation. Instead, it is a battleground in which competing visions, ideologies, discourses, religious values, and political interests struggle for dominance in a given society. In each of the sections, contributors draw upon specific case studies and employ critical theories to analyze power relations or to identify and destabilize underlying structures, dominant discourses, hegemonic knowledge, policies, or practices. Some authors also highlight data evidencing inequities, inequalities, or injustices in Indonesian education system. As a handbook, the emphasis on critical perspectives is useful to identify and evaluatethe ‘blind spots'of dominant policy discourses and their pedagogical consequences. The plurality of critical approaches also means that this book is necessarily multidisciplinary. A unique feature of this book is the fact that most authors are Indonesian academics who bring with them tacit knowledge of practices and issues. Overall, this book enriches the literature by bringing together different disciplinary perspectives such as political science, psychology, international relations, economics, and linguistics to critically examine important issues related to education in Indonesia.

Despite the largest-scale decentralisation of education since 1999, which broadly led to the marketisation of education, it is not clear how school education responds to the multicultural realities of Indonesian society and ethno-religious conflicts. Creating Multicultural Citizens presents a comprehensive evaluation of contemporary education in the largest democratic Muslim country in the world, focusing on the ways in which education prepares citizens for a multicultural society. It thoroughly examines the state-religion-community roles in the field of education in developing the Indonesian people. Using a qualitative ethnographic methodology, the author presents six case studies of different schools, including religious, non-religious, state and private schools, in two different provinces in Indonesia. It particularly explores: Evolving but contested theories of multiculturalism and multicultural education; Education changes and reforms in post-Suharto Indonesia; Government policies for multicultural education and school curriculum; School leadership for education for diversity; Roles of religious education in schools in nurturing multicultural beliefs, values and attitudes; Extra-curricular activities and tolerance; Students'perspectives of multiculturalism and the ideal society; The promising development of a pesantren (Islamic boarding school in establishing multicultural education. It is the first book to explore how education in Indonesia helps contribute to the creation of tolerant and multicultural citizens and is essential reading for anyone involved in Indonesian education and international higher education.

Indonesian Education: Teachers, Schools, and CentralAuthority, the first published study of life inside Indonesian schools, explores the role that classroom teachers'behavior and locates their actions within the broader cultures of education and government in Indonesia.