I Made Arsana Dwiputra | CRCS | Article

Brawls among school students become a major issue in Indonesia recently due to the level of their violence became deadly. Five high school students dead on August and September brawls. Some say exposure to violent media influence students’s aggressive behavior. A study on school gangs in Yogyakarta may help us to understand violent acts among school students.

A recent study by Hatib Abdul Kadir, a 2010 graduate of the CRCS who is now a lecturer in the Anthropology Department of the Brawijaya University in Malang, shows the role of religious identity in student gang life. In his study published by The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology  titled “Political Gangsterism and Islamic Masculinity in Young Moslem Post New Order: Gang Hostility and Mass Fighting among Islamic High School Students in Yogyakarta,” Hatib (as he is usually referred at CRCS) argues that religious aspect is neglected in understanding school gang life because most studies in this issue relate school gang life to economic and political situation. Student participation in gang is seen as a response to economic deprivation or hostile state authorities.