Structure, Agency, and Historical Role: The West Java Regional Leadership of The Nahdlatul Ulama Female Students Association in Strengthening Nonformal Islamic Education (2016–2023)

Abstract

This article examines the history of the founding of the Nahdlatul Ulama Female Students Association (IPPNU) and the role of its West Java Regional Leadership (PW) in strengthening nonformal Islamic education during 2016–2023. Studies of religious female student organizations at the regional level have rarely been addressed in NU organizational historiography, which has largely stopped at the local branch, district branch, or city level. Using the historical method—heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, and historiography—and drawing on organizational archives and secondary literature, this study shows that the strengthening of Islamic education by PW IPPNU West Java took place in four areas: developing students' understanding of Islam, building capacity and character through tiered cadre training, expanding access to higher education, and strengthening digital literacy. With the help of Anthony Giddens's structuration theory, the article shows that these roles arose from a reciprocal relationship between organizational structure—the values of Ahlussunnah wal Jama’ah, the Basic Guidelines/Bylaws, and the national cadre training system—and the agency of regional officials, who reflectively translated that structure into programs responsive to the West Java context, including during the Covid-19 pandemic. These findings affirm that a religious female student organization acts as a nonformal educational institution that actively reproduces and renews its own structure, rather than merely carrying out central policies passively.