Harmonizing Religious and Rational Discourses in Education: An Empirical Study of Students’ Perceptions in Secondary Schools

This study examines how secondary-school students perceive the relationship between Islamic Education and Philosophy, two subjects often presented as contrasting domains of spiritual meaning and rational inquiry. Using a mixed-methods research design, the study draws on two surveys administered to a combined dataset of 388 student responses from Moroccan public secondary schools. Quantitative measures captured students’ perceptions of thematic overlap, perceived complementarity, and critical-thinking dispositions, while qualitative responses explored their lived experiences, intellectual tensions, and expectations of classroom practice.The findings reveal that most students perceive meaningful complementarity between the two subjects: Islamic Education provides ethical grounding and existential orientation, while Philosophy strengthens reasoning, argumentation, and analytical clarity. Moments of perceived tension between the discourses were interpreted by students not as contradictions, but as opportunities for deeper reflection. The study also identifies a significant pedagogical gap: students value the content of Islamic Education yet express dissatisfaction with traditional, non-dialogical teaching methods. A composite Balanced Learner Index (BLI) developed in this study further shows that students who score higher in spiritual engagement and critical-thinking disposition are more likely to perceive harmony between the two disciplines.These findings suggest that integrating religious and rational discourses is both pedagogically feasible and developmentally beneficial. The study concludes that a dialogical, inquiry-based approach—one that embraces contemporary issues and encourages reflective reasoning—can strengthen the role of Islamic Education and Philosophy in cultivating ethically grounded, critically minded twenty-first-century learners.