Social Comparison, Spiritual Meaning, and Students’ Moral Reasoning Regarding Gratitude for Schooling in an Islamic Boarding School: A Phenomenological Study

Aisyah Jihan Nurkhafiza (Universitas Islam Majapahit)
Syaikhu Rozi (Universitas Islam Majapahit)
Muhammad Ali Rohmad (Universitas Islam Majapahit)

Permata : Jurnal Pendidikan Agama Islam
Vol. 7 No. 2 (2026): Permata : Jurnal Pendidikan Agama Islam

Gratitude is often treated in schools as a norm to be taught rather than a form of reasoning students actively construct. This study examines how senior high school students build moral reasoning around gratitude for the opportunity to attend school, and interprets that construction through Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development. Using a qualitative phenomenological design, data were collected through in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation involving six students (grades X-XII) as primary informants and two Islamic Religious Education (PAI) teachers as supporting informants at an Islamic boarding-school-affiliated senior high school in Mojokerto, East Java, Indonesia. Data were analyzed following the Miles and Huberman model and validated through source and method triangulation and member checking. Findings show that students' gratitude is constructed through six interlocking pathways: recognition of educational benefit, downward social comparison with children who lack access to schooling, the protective and formative experience of the pesantren environment, interaction with teachers and peers, hope for the future, and the disruptive experience of losing school routines during the pandemic. Among these, downward social comparison emerged as the most consistently invoked and generative pathway, and notably, it did not remain a purely cognitive appraisal as reported in prior secular literature, but was actively spiritualized by students into an expression of moral and religious accountability. Mapped onto Kohlberg's framework, students' reasoning clusters predominantly at the conventional level, particularly stage three (interpersonal accord), with selective indications of movement toward stage four (social order maintenance). The study extends the social-comparison-gratitude literature into an Islamic boarding-school context and suggests that schools can deliberately design reflective comparison experiences, rather than leaving this mechanism to incidental disruptions such as a pandemic.