Religious education as ethical subject formation: Islamic ethical formation influenced by Sufi values in an Indonesian public madrasah

This article examines how Islamic ethical formation influenced by Sufi values is enacted within the everyday life of a public madrasah in Indonesia. Drawing on an interpretive qualitative case study in a state-regulated Islamic senior high school in Central Java, the study analyses observational, interview, and documentary data involving two Akidah Akhlak teachers, one school principal, and five Grade XI students. The findings show that ethical formation was mediated through teacher exemplarity, Qur’anic recitation, congregational prayer, classroom instruction, moral advice, disciplinary routines and students’ differentiated responses to peer relations and wider social pressures. Rather than claiming a formal Sufi pedagogical system, the article shows how selected Sufi-related ethical values, including zuhud, qana’ah, tawakkul, mahabbah, taubah and tawadhu’, informed Islamic moral-religious education in the madrasah. Bringing Bourdieu’s habitus into conversation with Biesta’s subjectification, the article contributes to Religious Education scholarship by theorising ethical formation as an ambivalent process between habituation, compliance, agency and reflective self-formation.