The Role of Character Education Based on Religious Moderation in Preventing Intolerance among Students

Abstract

Rising incidents of religiously motivated intolerance among students pose a significant challenge to social cohesion and democratic citizenship. This study examines the role of character education grounded in the principles of religious moderation as a preventive strategy to reduce intolerance among secondary school students. The research aims to explore how moderation-based religious character education is conceptualized and implemented in school contexts, how it shapes students’ attitudes and behaviours toward religious diversity, and what contextual factors facilitate or hinder its effectiveness. Employing a qualitative research design, the study used purposive sampling to select three public secondary schools noted for explicit character education programs. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with school administrators, teachers, and students, focus group discussions with student peer leaders, and classroom observations and curricular document analysis. Data triangulation and member checking were applied to enhance trustworthiness. Thematic analysis was conducted iteratively using a coding framework developed from both the literature and emergent data. The analysis reveals that character education anchored in religious moderation fosters cognitive and affective shifts enhanced critical religious literacy, empathic perspective-taking, and norms of respectful dialogue that collectively reduce expressions of exclusionary attitudes among students. Conclusions and implications: Moderation-based character education shows promise as a context-sensitive approach to preventing student intolerance, but its scalability requires systematic teacher professional development, curricular revisions that embed pluralistic competencies, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. Further longitudinal qualitative and mixed-methods research is recommended to assess sustained behavioural change and policy transferability