Constructing Collective Joy: Slogans, Social Identity, and Extremism Prevention in Religious Education

Abstract

Joy is increasingly recognized as a pedagogical resource that shapes identity, social relations, and psychological resilience. Grounded in the work of Ross Gay, joy is conceptualized not as a denial of hardship but as a relational experience cultivated through care, solidarity, and collective endeavor within educational spaces. However, empirical studies on how collective joy is mediated through organizational symbols—particularly among female students in value-based educational communities—remain scarce. This study examined how female students at Pondok Pesantren Salafiyah Syafi'iyah Situbondo construct their identity through organizational slogans and explored their affective experiences and behavioral orientations in the context of extremism prevention, through a joy-centered pedagogical lens. A phenomenological approach was employed with 40 female student participants selected via purposive and key informant sampling. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and analyzed through phenomenological description, horizontalization, thematic clustering, and essence formulation. Findings revealed four interconnected semantic clusters—sisterhood and radical inclusion, solidarity and collective efficacy, movement and accountability, and sincerity and surrender—through which slogans functioned as affective anchors, fostering shared hope, collective commitment, and prosocial behavioral orientations. This process strengthened communal resilience against extremist narratives. The study suggests that joy-centered pedagogy can be integrated into educational counseling as a community-based, preventative framework, wherein counselors leverage shared cultural narratives and collective symbols to co-construct moderate identities, bolster psychosocial resilience, and foster ethical engagement among students in diverse global contexts.