Constructing Tolerance

The state-sponsored system of modern education has long been noted by scholars as a structural force in the proliferation and consolidation of democratic ideals. This chapter examines how national education systems promote religious tolerance (understood here as a key civic value) through citizenship education. It also demonstrates how the transmission of certain ideologies and citizenship models can undermine democratization efforts. Through a comparative analysis of citizenship education in the decades leading to democratization in two of the largest Muslim-majority countries, Indonesia and Pakistan, the study reveals that the religious-pluralist model of citizenship in Indonesia, grounded in the philosophy of Pancasila, has been more conducive to promoting religious tolerance than the religious-exclusivist citizenship model of Pakistan, based on its Islamic ideology.