<![CDATA[This study aims to explore the dialectical integration of educational thought from Paulo Freire, Maxine Greene, Az-Zarnuji and its influence on academic motivation, classroom participation, critical awareness, and spiritual meaning-making in Islamic education learning among PAI (Islamic Religious Education) undergraduates. The research employs a descriptive qualitative approach with a field study design. The subjects consist of 40 third-semester PAI students at UIN K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid Pekalongan, observed within a real classroom learning context. Data were collected through interactive classroom observations that captured students’ behavioral expressions of motivation, involvement in dialogue, responsiveness in discussions, analytical engagement with socio-religious issues, reflective reactions based on personal learning experiences, as well as spontaneous spiritual signals in framing learning intentions. The collected data were analyzed thematically through stages of data condensation, categorization, interpretation, and axiological reflection between theoretical constructs and field-based learning realities. The findings reveal a clear positive shift in students’ learning engagement, characterized by increased academic confidence, stronger motivation built from dialogic recognition, greater discussion participation, sharpened critical reading of religious-social contexts, and deeper internalization of knowledge as an ethically grounded and spiritually directed learning process. The study concludes that synthesizing critical pedagogy, social imagination, classic adab-based ethics of learning, and reflective experiential progressivism enables a more humane, participatory, reflective, and value-oriented PAI learning climate. This integrated approach supports student learning not only in a cognitive sense, but also as a socially conscious and spiritually meaningful process, preparing them to become future Islamic educators with a critical mind, imaginative sensitivity, moral integrity, and grounded spiritual intentionality.]]>
