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The Impact of Religious Education Subjects on the Formation of Muslim Girls’ Identity: A Comparative Study of Girls’ Secondary School in Kedah, Malaysia and Leeds, Britain

The Religious Education (RE) subject is one of the ways to transmit beliefs, practices, and values as well as to develop an Islamic identity to the students. The literature on Islamic schools and students’ identity points to the continuing importance of Islamic education subjects. The main aim of this study is to explore how the RE subjects shaped students’ identity at schools. The methodologies employed are participant observations and 72 semi-structured interviews. Thereafter this study embarks on two case studies; Maktab Mahmud Alor Setar, Kedah, Malaysia and New Horizon Community School (NHCS), Leeds, the United Kingdom as they offered Islamic education for Muslim girls. Although the ideas of culture, belief and policy have influenced the wider framework, the findings show that in different contexts and countries majority of the students agree that the RE has influenced their identities. This study also shows the negotiations that take place between the culture, belief, policy and the Islamic schools in the formation of girl’s identities, the process of inculcation of self- identity and how different it is in comparison to Leeds. This study helps the Islamic schools to offer a better syllabus for RE subjects, guide the students to be a good Muslim and make the RE’s syllabuses suitable to the contemporary society.