ISLAMIC SCHOOLS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN INDONESIA: A Student Perspective

The study explores how students of two different Islamic Senior Secondary Schools in Palangkaraya, Indonesia experience school practices in regards to social justice. Employing a qualitative approach, the researcher conducted ethnographic observations of the schools' practices and events, and interviewed more than fifty students of the two schools individually and in groups to understand their feelings and perspectives about how the schools promote social justice among them. The findings suggest that several school structures including the subject stream selection, student groupings, the emergence of the model or international classroom were found to have been sources for social injustice. Students of the Social Sciences and Language groups, of low academic performance and economically disadvantaged admitted the feeling of unfair treatment because of this structuration. Confirming the theory of social reproduction, the schools failed to provide distributive, cultural and associational justices, and reasserted further inequalities among members of society.