The Dynamics of Students’ Islamic Identity After Relocation: A Social Identity Perspective on Sekolah Indonesia Kuala Lumpur in a Multicultural Environment

Abstract

The phenomenon of students identifying as Muslim chiefly as a formal label, without a corresponding internalisation of Islamic values, recurs across educational contexts. It is observable among students at Sekolah Indonesia Kuala Lumpur (SIKL), Malaysia, where some have not deeply integrated Islamic values into daily life reflected in irregular worship, limited Qur’anic proficiency, and low participation in religious activities. The school’s relocation to a smaller temporary facility has further reduced the space for interaction and religious formation, while the multicultural, metropolitan environment of Kuala Lumpur shapes the process as well. This study examines how SIKL students’ Islamic identity is formed, maintained, and rendered vulnerable in response to these challenges. Using a qualitative case study approach, data were gathered through field observation, semi structured interviews with Islamic Religious Education (PAI) teachers and junior secondary students, and documentation of the school’s operational curriculum (KOSP), and analysed thematically. The analysis is anchored in Michael Hogg’s social identity theory as its grand theory, with Bauman, Bronfenbrenner, Berry, and Berger as woven supporting frameworks. The findings indicate a tendency toward declining salience of religious identity-driven by reduced instructional time, suspended religious activities, and a diverse social environment-rather than a straightforward decline in internalisation, a distinction the article foregrounds. Even so, PAI teachers sustain identity formation through adaptive efforts: preserving positive habituation, integrating Islamic values across lessons, and creating moments of religious salience. The study contributes to the scholarship on religious formation in Indonesian diaspora schools and to the analysis of Islamic identity in multicultural settings.