Institutional Practices of Islamic Moral Formation: A Processual Study of Religious Education in a Public Elementary School

Purpose: This study examines how Islamic moral formation is institutionally produced through everyday practices of religious education in a public elementary school. Rather than assessing learning outcomes, the article seeks to understand the processual mechanisms through which Islamic values are embedded, normalized, and sustained within school routines, interactions, and pedagogical arrangements. Method: Employing a qualitative process-oriented approach, the study draws on classroom observations, school-based religious activities, and interpretive analysis of instructional practices related to Islamic religious education. Data were analyzed using a thematic and processual framework to trace how moral meanings are enacted across formal instruction, habituation practices, and institutional norms within the school environment. Findings: The findings reveal that Islamic moral formation operates not merely through curricular content, but through a constellation of institutional practices, including routine worship activities, teacher modeling, moral habituation, and symbolic regulation of behavior. These practices function as an integrated moral infrastructure that shapes students’ dispositions incrementally and continuously. Moral education emerges as a relational and institutional process, sustained by repetition, implicit expectations, and shared ethical references rather than explicit doctrinal instruction alone. Significance: This study contributes to the interdisciplinary scholarship on religion and education by reframing Islamic religious education as an institutional moral practice rather than a pedagogical intervention. By foregrounding processual dynamics, the article offers a conceptual contribution to the study of lived religion and moral formation within public institutions. The findings are relevant for scholars of religion, spirituality, and ethics seeking to understand how religious values are embedded in everyday institutional life beyond formal religious settings.