Design of Islamic Religious Education: Purposes, alignment of curriculum components and contexts

This paper presents evidence of the design of Islamic Religious Education (IRE) by evaluating the purpose, the interconnectedness of curricular components and its contextual levels through a conceptual framework for studying the design of IRE. Relying on document analyses, the findings indicate a gap between the intended and teachers’ designs of IRE. The threefold purpose of IRE, ta’leem, ta’deeb and tarbiyah, is rarely integrated into designing IRE outcomes. The ta’leem oriented outcomes are the most frequently included, the so-called ‘cognitification’ of IRE in this study. Furthermore, the components of intended IRE outcomes, formation activities that shape the threefold purpose, and assessment methods are often unaligned with one another, especially in designing IRE related to the domains of ta’deeb and tarbiyah. Finally, IRE is generally designed to help students contribute at the personal, local and national levels although its contribution to the global one is only expected from upper secondary school students. Based on these findings, this study calls for developing a taxonomy of IRE and rethinking the role of IRE in addressing multiple challenges at various levels.